


Mssrs. Padfoot and Moony, Cold Tea, and Lost Time

by tenaciousturtle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Time, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, MWPP Era, Marauders, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Mutual Pining, Non-Explicit Sex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma, ish, mischief!, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 63,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25196143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenaciousturtle/pseuds/tenaciousturtle
Summary: Time in Azkaban has left Sirius cold and empty; time in solitude has left Remus tired and alone. Their reunion is a timid one, at first, but warm memories tend to fill any void.-or-In which Sirius Black and Remus Lupin reminisce and, subsequently, become reacquainted.__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________A series of one-shots which alternate between the timeline of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and the Marauders' time in Hogwarts.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 26
Kudos: 75





	1. After - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Not schoolboys anymore? Why, Moony, my good mate! Are you mental? At the ripe age of 34, we are still in our prime. I broke out of Azkaban, for Merlin’s sake. The highest-security Wizarding prison in the world, mind you.’
> 
> Remus considered this with a wan smile before deciding to play along. ‘You did. But you cheated as Padfoot.’
> 
> The boy that Remus knew and thought to have died in Azkaban—the boy that Remus loved—reared his head inside Sirius then. ‘Cheated?!’ he sputtered, his emotions catapulting from gutted to properly outraged in mere seconds. ‘Moony, you wound me!’
> 
> Remus sipped his tea with renewed interest, averting his eyes mischievously. ‘Well, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time…’
> 
> -or-
> 
> In which Remus Lupin first comes to call on Sirius Black and the strange occupants of Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

In the weeks following his recoup of Number 12 Grimmauld Place, Sirius had spent much of his time settling into the role of sole proprietor of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, a task he found both ironically honourable and unfathomably tedious. On the threshold of his childhood home that first day, Sirius breathlessly uttered ‘Toujours Pur’ as he touched his wand—on lend from a friend of Dumbledore’s—to the ornate brass knob. The door opened with the painful click of a locking mechanism long abandoned, and Sirius stumbled into the foyer unceremoniously. A shrill voice, one which Sirius thought he would never have the deep misfortune of hearing again, rang out through the halls.

‘FILTHY BLOOD TRAITOR! A STAIN TO THE BLACK FAMILY NAME! NO SON OF MINE!’

Sirius cowered at that piercing voice, suddenly and urgently transported back to a time when he was rather smaller than he is now and asked why he couldn’t play with the little Muggle boys of his neighbourhood. When the anticipated hex did not come, Sirius lowered his hands from his face and peered around the foyer. There, affixed to the wall, was an epic portrait of the late Walburga Black, still spouting fowl epithets in Sirius’s direction. With her dark hair pulled into a sweeping updo, lace-collared robes, and haughty, sharp cheekbones, Walburga could _almost_ be described as beautiful, even at her age. The foul language that fell from her mouth, however, curdled in Sirius’s ears, and he decided then and there that she shared a countenance with a certain hag that he had an unfortunate encounter with shortly after leaving Hogwarts.

‘Put a sock in it, you daft cow,’ Sirius said with a two-finger salute but little conviction, unsure whether it would be considered indecent to tell his dead mother’s likeness to sod off. In response, she pressed her lips together and glared at Sirius through hooded lids. He managed a sigh of relief as he ran his fingers through his curls, still filthy and unkempt from months of living as Padfoot.

Upon further examination, Sirius found that nothing much had changed in the twenty-odd years since he had violently packed his trunk, slunk out in the wee hours of the morning, and vowed to never return. To his delight, the many Muggle posters which had adorned his bedroom walls remained intact and in place, albeit surrounded by his destroyed belongings. The house was still garishly festooned with enough Dark artefacts to supply a museum; the tapestry of the Black family tree remained intact on the wall of the drawing room, a constant reminder that Sirius was a diseased branch to be pruned away in _the before_. Before he went to Azkaban for crimes he could never have committed. Before—Sirius snorted at the irony—he was the only Black to survive. Sirius ventured to remove the tapestry and its reminder of his familial sins, but his attempts fell short after an unfortunate run-in with a Permanent Sticking Charm and a curse that led to a nasty, mutated case of spattergroit that developed in… _unfortunate_ places.

Kreacher, whom Sirius had desperately hoped had come to a sticky end or offed himself in solidarity over Walburga Black’s untimely demise, still roamed the halls under the pretence of dusting and tidying—though Sirius suspected that it was to continue to mutter, without interruption, the tosh that his dear parents had so vehemently spewed until death had shrouded and silenced them. Sirius rather suspected that Kreacher had gone more round the twist after Walburga’s death, a suspicion that was only bolstered by Kreacher’s obsessive treatment of her hag-like rendering and dereliction of the only occupied room in the house—his own. Sirius didn’t mind this too much; he wasn’t too keen on Kreacher’s squinted, omnipresent eyes and rubbish, muttered or otherwise. They came to an uneasy agreement: Kreacher would _harmlessly_ mutter, and Sirius would not mount his head with those of house elves past in exchange.

Unfortunately, Kreacher no longer seemed to find this unspoken treaty agreeable or worth keeping when Remus came to call. He and Walburga mounted an assault together, one that was constituted of shoddy insults directed at Remus’s blood status and otherwise undesirability. Sirius, who had recently made peace with the pair, threw caution to the wind and descended upon them with more fervour than he had ever employed to defend himself. Remus, for his part, smiled serenely as Sirius hurled curses and Muggle curse words at his assailants, his hands clasped neatly behind his back. He rocked back on his heels and quirked his eyebrows when Kreacher called him a ‘shabby, whore-hounded, uphill gardener’ with such intense vigor that spittle flew across the room—that was certainly a new one.

When Sirius had finally managed to force a pair of moth-eaten velvet curtains over the hulking frame and banish Kreacher to the kitchen, Remus murmured, ‘What a lovely pair. I see why I never had the great pleasure of making your mother’s acquaintance.’ There was much more that he wanted to discuss beneath the words, and he willed Sirius to accept an apology that he hadn’t quite uttered.

A strange shudder crossed Sirius’ face, and he quickly looked away. In seconds, he had replaced the red-faced anger which he had directed at his mother with a stony complexion. Twelve years of suffering settled in the empty space between them, coating Remus’s tongue.

________________

Remus eyed Sirius across the parlour through lowered lids, his lips pressed firmly in a line. Sirius, seated in an armchair that he had once denounced as ‘bloody minging at best,’ looked utterly despondent in turn. He positively glared at the cuppa in his hands; the Muggle digestives that Remus had nicked from the corner shop sat unopened beside him. Hunched over with his knees drawn toward his chest, Sirius’s visage was more akin to that of a sulking schoolboy than the posh aristocrat that he was meant to be.

Azkaban, Remus noted with a learned viciousness that faded to an aching guilt behind his navel, was not kind to Sirius. He could hardly fathom that this man in front of him could be woven from the same tapestry as the boy he had known at Hogwarts—a boy who oozed wealth and status from every orifice. A boy whose vibrance sprawled and extended and grasped at every crook and bend of the castle. This Sirius, by contrast, looked both rumpled and stretched out, colourless and chromatic: a bit, Remus decided, like a favourite jumper worn too thin and fraying at the edges. The kind that he just couldn’t bear to toss in the bin for sake of sentimentality.

‘All right, Sirius?’

Sirius tore his gaze away from the cup of tea in his hands, and a small voice in Remus’s head chortled—if only he had put that much effort into studying the tea leaves in Divs, and he may have actually been decent in the class. Sirius’s voice was tight and mechanical as he responded, ‘Yeah. ‘m just dandy.’

‘Sirius, I—’

‘S’okay, Remus.’

Remus frowned and blinked several times in rapid succession. They had had this conversation once before, in the Shrieking Shack, but he needed to apologise again. For allowing Sirius to suffer at the hands of the dementors. For accepting a story which he should have known was a load of codswallop. ‘No, it isn’t. I shouldn’t have—well, I should’ve—I should’ve known—You would never—Not to James. Not to Lily.’

‘Don’t be a berk.’ Though his words were comforting, Sirius’s voice maintained that bored air of indifference. ‘You made the logical choice based on the available evidence. For all you knew, I was a bloody psychopath who’d just barely managed to convince you otherwise.’

Remus smiled then, absently tracing a scar on his left hand that he hadn’t quite healed after a rather unfortunate incident with Fizzing Whizzbees, a Ducklifors Jinx, and Professor McGonaggal’s favourite hat. ‘You _were_ a bloody psychopath, you wanker. That much was always clear.’ He paused and chewed on his thumbnail, a bad habit from his teenage years that he had never been able to shake. ‘But you weren’t a coward. You weren’t a murderer. Please, forgive me.’

If only for a moment, Sirius allowed his façade to slip. ‘Course I forgive you, you prat. S’long as you forgive me for thinking you a traitor, too.’ Sirius winced as he remembered slowly withdrawing from Remus’s life, rumours of a rat—a real rat, as it turned out—swirling amongst the members of the Order. He had felt so blinded, fed lies by Peter for weeks about Remus’s dubious whereabouts. When Remus had come home to their shared flat with bruises blooming across his chest and a short ‘Special mission for Dumbledore,’ before refusing all other questioning, Sirius’ mind had been set. His Remus was the spy. Sirius felt as if didn’t know him and moved out of the flat without a word the next day—three weeks before the Halloween eve that changed everything.

‘With my… condition… it was only fair to have thought that way. It’s in my nature.’ The unspoken words that Remus had repeated so many times— _I’m a monster_ —vibrated painfully in Sirius’s chest.

‘Moony—’

Remus exhaled slowly. ‘Sirius. We aren’t schoolboys anymore. I can’t possibly answer to Moony now.’ Until he had seen the Map between Harry’s trembling fingers—until he had seen the speck of ink of a man he had thought long dead—, he’d forced himself to forget that the nickname had even existed. That his lycanthropy had ever been seen as naught but a ‘furry little problem’ by his friends. Walburga’s insults mingled with the rhetoric of the Werewolf Registry at the forefront of his mind, and Remus was forced to remember the end of his second term teaching at Hogwarts, which turned out to be the end of his short-lived tenure at Hogwarts. He could no longer proudly bear a pet name for the illness that dictated his life.

Sirius furrowed his eyebrows, sipped his tea for the first time. He resisted the urge to retch—it had gone cold—and soldiered through another sip to make a point. He had enough sense to look right gutted, which Remus realised was for show but appreciated nonetheless. It was the first emotion he had seen on Sirius’s face since they had settled into the parlour. ‘Not schoolboys anymore? Why, Moony, my good mate! Are you mental? At the ripe age of 34, we are still in our _prime_. I broke out of _Azkaban_ , for Merlin’s sake. The highest-security Wizarding prison in the world, mind you.’

Remus considered this with a wan smile before deciding to play along. ‘You did. But you cheated as Padfoot.’

The boy that Remus knew and thought to have died in Azkaban—the boy that Remus loved—reared his head inside Sirius then. ‘Cheated?!’ he sputtered, his emotions catapulting from gutted to properly outraged in mere seconds. ‘Moony, you _wound_ me!’

Remus sipped his tea with renewed interest, averting his eyes mischievously. ‘Well, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time…’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is my first time writing fanfiction, so please let me know what you think! i'm not entirely sure how long this will be--i have a handful of ideas that i want to try--, but i have always adored sirius and remus (as partners or otherwise) and would have loved to see more of their relationship bloom after they were reunited in prisoner of azkaban. each chapter will alternate between some weeks post-poa and the marauders' time at hogwarts! it will be as canon-compliant as possible.


	2. Before - Part 1 - 4th Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Hogwarts’ dueling club is rubbish, Pete, and Snivellus’s big, greasy nose is in it. That should be reason enough to avoid its meetings at all costs—which is why, my dear lads, we are going to create our own.’ Sirius punctuated this statement by throwing his arms out widely, narrowly missing Mary Macdonald’s head. She tore her eyes away from her conversation with Marlene McKinnon for just long enough to peg Sirius with a withering glare. When Sirius realised that this was the only response he received, he continued with added gravitas. ‘A Marauders’ dueling club, by invitation only. Top secret. Y’know, just some fit birds and fine blokes learning to blow each other’s trousers off.’
> 
> -or-
> 
> In which Sirius Black, James Potter, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew elect to break rules for noble reasons.

It was near the end of their fourth year that Sirius had decided over supper and a large mouthful of shepherd’s pie that the Marauders—as Sirius, James, Remus, and Peter had recently taken to calling themselves and their inclination toward rascality—would form a dueling club. The idea thoroughly delighted James, vexed Remus, and confused Peter.

‘Erm, Sirius,’ Peter said as he ladled a second helping of carrots onto his plate. The Marauders had never been the involved or extracurricular types (with Quidditch being a fair and banging exception for Sirius and James), preferring to expel any abundance of excess energy through the plotting and execution of elaborate pranks. ‘Hogwarts has already got a dueling club. You called Dorcas Meadowes daft for asking us to join “that rubbish” just last week.’

Sirius’ face soured at the very insinuation that he would be interested in such an organisation. ‘Hogwarts’ dueling club _is_ rubbish, Pete, and Snivellus’s big, greasy nose is in it. That should be reason enough to avoid its meetings at all costs—which is _why_ , my dear lads, we are going to create our own.’ Sirius punctuated this statement by throwing his arms out widely, narrowly missing Mary Macdonald’s head. She tore her eyes away from her conversation with Marlene McKinnon for just long enough to peg Sirius with a withering glare. When Sirius realised that this was the only response he received, he continued with added gravitas. ‘A _Marauders’_ dueling club, by invitation only. _Top secret_. Y’know, just some fit birds and fine blokes learning to blow each other’s trousers off.’

Remus picked at some lint on his jumper, looking wholly unamused. The din of the Great Hall seemed to utter its agreements as he said, ‘I’m not sure that’s the best idea.’ His thoughts drifted, as they so often did, to his ‘furry little problem.’ As purebloods of renowned families, Sirius and James could afford a bit of mischief here, a touch of trouble-making there. Their parents held significant sway in the Wizarding World, and they benefited from such handedly. Remus, on the other hand, could remember the young boy he had once been, obsessing over _Hogwarts: A History_ and reverently whispering that he would attend Hogwarts one day, even if he were Sorted in Slytherin, as if hoping to manifest it into reality. When Dumbledore extended him an invitation to attend Hogwarts despite his body’s tenuous relationship with the moon and those dreams metamorphosised into realities, he had promised himself—and his mithering parents—that he would avoid trouble at all costs. His wasn’t too keen on the prospect of expulsion with the odds already stacked so heavily against him. Peter seemed to empathise with this sentiment, nodding his assent.

Feeling strengthened by Peter’s solidarity, Remus ventured to add, ‘Besides, unauthorised clubs are against school policy. _Top secret_ or otherwise.’

James grinned wickedly, already steepling his hands near the bridge of his nose. ‘Well, I think it’d be brilliant. Sirius, what terms do you propose?’

Sirius, who had begun to regard the remnants of his shepherd’s pie with a murderous expression, brightened immediately. ‘Why, James, I am _so_ glad you asked.’ From his rucksack, he produced a bit of parchment already scrawled with the title, ‘ _Mssrs. Black, Potter, Pettigrew, and Lupin Present: The_ Exclusive _Marauders’ Dueling Club,_ ’ and a messy jumble of numbered items. Remus scowled at his name’s presence on the parchment, feeling the trepidation of a stern indictment from Dumbledore and that year’s Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, the young and excessively nervous Professor Davies.

‘I don’t quite fancy the name—it’s missing… some thing or other,’ Sirius admitted, ‘but I think I may be onto something with this.’

Sirius’s eyes shifted to Remus’s face, practically begging like a dog for his endorsement of this batty plan, and Remus sighed mildly. ‘All right, then. Read us your bloody terms already.’

________________

‘This is a terrible idea,’ Remus maintained weakly, though he continued his monotonous routine of pressing hot wax to scrolls of parchment and raising a seal in the wax with a displeasured prod of his wand. Peter’s neat calligraphy, honed by years of his mum jabbering on about the ‘ _importance of proper penmanship,’_ adorned each scrap of parchment and exultantly mocked Remus:

_Mssrs. Black, Potter, Pettigrew, and Lupin formally invite you to join:_

_The Most Honourable and Exclusive Marauders’ Dueling Club_

_Upon accepting this invitation, recipients thereby consent to the following rules without exception:_

_1 st RULE: You do not speak about the Most Honourable and Exclusive Marauders’ Dueling Club._

_2 nd RULE: You DO NOT speak about the Most Honourable and Exclusive Marauders’ Dueling Club._

_3 rd RULE: If someone says "stop" or goes limp, the fight is over._

_4 th RULE: Only two blokes (or birds) to a fight._

_5 th RULE: One fight at a time._

_6 th RULE: No shirts, no shoes (Simply taking the piss, ladies! Though trousers are optional. Pants are a must.)._

_7 th RULE: Fights will go on as long as they have to._

_8 th RULE: If this is your first night at the Most Honourable and Exclusive Marauders’ Dueling Club, you HAVE to fight._

Below the terms that Sirius had thought up and proposed earlier that evening—terms which somehow made their way into the writings of wizard-turned-Muggle novelist and phenomenon Chuck Palahniuk some years later—were instructions for attendance (the Ancient Runes classroom on the sixth floor at 11.45, that coming Monday evening) and a line which invitation recipients could sign and return via _owl_ , as though they didn’t all live in the same bloody castle. The exception to this rule of owled répondez s'il vous plaît was a one Lily Evans, whom James had invited in the Common Room with an off-handed comment regarding Lily’s dueling abilities and thus fallen victim to a magnificent Jelly-Legs Jinx in response. The other boys had niggling suspicions that James’s intentions may have extending beyond the interests of sparring and camaraderie, but James had yet to voice this fancy; Sirius, Peter, and Remus agreed to lay in wait for James to realise it for himself. Remus still found the whole business of the dueling club to be a bit jiggery-pokery, and he griped loudly each time he thought Sirius might be listening from across the dormitory.

‘Sirius, really. I think you are absolutely out of order with this club.’ Repeating his apprehensions of the plan a second time made Remus feel like a whinging sod, but he thought again about his precarious place at Hogwarts and doubled down his convictions. ‘It’s a terrible idea.’

‘Moony, you _wound_ me!’ Sirius exclaimed, bounding toward Remus’s four-poster bed with astounding agility that only a Quidditch player could possess. He crashed into Remus as hot wax poured onto the letterhead addressed to Frank Longbottom, a bright seventh-year in Gryffindor whom Remus heard had aspirations of becoming an auror. Peter glanced up from his letter-writing as Remus yelped, scratching away at the wax that now coated his fingernail. ‘This is an _excellent_ idea. Would you like to know why?’

‘I imagine you intend to enlighten me either way.’

‘Would you believe me if I said it would be fun for the sake of pure, unadulterated fun?’

Remus fiddled with the top button of his cardigan, a small smile pulling at the corners of his lips. ‘No. You always have an ulterior motive.’

‘Fine, you git.’ Sirius glanced about the dormitory as if he were carrying a terrible secret that could not be overheard. James ran a hand through his already-mussed hair, the nib of his quill stuck between his teeth. Peter shuffled the blank parchment before him absentmindedly. There, poised on the edge of Remus’s bed, Sirius had become the room’s focal point and centre of gravity. ‘But this ulterior motive is a bit… different. There have been whispers. I know you’ve heard them, too. Of that Dark wizard. Wots-his-name. My mum’s right chuffed about him, y’know? Always prattling on about the “purification of the wizarding race” and whatever else she can pull out of her arse. I just figured—well, I figured we ought to be prepared. That the Muggleborns ought to be prepared. The club could help us to learn proper defence skills and fighting techniques to fend off that Dark wizard-wotsit.’

It was then that Remus saw Sirius in a way he’d never quite fathomed. Sirius had long lived under a guise of arrogant indifference that extended its bounds to the politicking of the Wizarding World and beyond, but this Sirius—a Sirius on the cusp of fifteen, just two years shy of manhood—was conscientious of the world's tightening vice and _wanted to squeeze back_. His grey eyes shone with an intensity that promised sincerity, and Remus felt his cheeks color as shame and another, unfamiliar emotion settled into the pit of his stomach. _Sirius was not a coward_.

‘All right, then,’ Remus conceded for a second time that evening, swallowing his shirty attitude. It was not the first time that he would underestimate Sirius’s spirit, and it would not be the last. Those convictions, so strong moments before, melted away; to hell with his reputation with Dumbledore. ‘These bloody invitations won’t finish themselves.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all! this didn't quite go as i had initially anticipated when i planned out this chapter, but i'm still somewhat pleased with the results. i like to think that harry's formation of dumbledore's army could have been preceded by the marauders' early attempts to become involved in the first wizarding war--an important development in sirius's character, as well. please let me know what your thoughts on the story are so far!


	3. After - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They would talk about Peter someday, about Sirius’s time in Azkaban and Remus’s long years alone and the painful James- and Lily-sized holes in both of their lives. For now, as they relearned the cadence of the other’s voice, they would speak of the things which made them happy. They had a lot of time to discuss the things which made them ache.
> 
> Later.
> 
> -or- 
> 
> In which Sirius Black and Remus Lupin choose to ignore the pains of their pasts.

‘You’re remembering that night all wrong, Moony,’ Sirius tutted, crossing his ankles and reclining further into that ‘bloody minging’ armchair of his. Remus was not, in fact, ‘remembering that night all wrong,’ but Sirius’s stomach twinged with a sharp pang at the thought of Remus viewing him as some sort of hero when, in reality, his initial intentions really had been ‘just some fit birds and fine blokes learning to blow each other’s trousers off.’ The bit about Lord Voldemort had come to him before he had pitched the idea to the other Marauders, yes, but it had not been an original part of his plan. Sirius deflected by adding, ‘I seem to remember that I convinced you to continue in your waxing and sealing endeavours with my masculine wiles. Exclusively.’

‘No, not in the slightest. As I remember it, your so-called masculine wiles were introduced in our seventh year.’ Remus folded his hands in his lap, his tea by now long forgotten on the floor in their reminiscing. ‘You may not want to believe it, but you have always had a true heart, Sirius—even if you were an absolute arsehole in school.’

Sirius tongue flicked over his bottom lip in thought, but he chose not to respond. He didn’t want to go starting rows with Remus while their relationship still felt frail and new. This argument of Sirius’s purity of spirit was one which they had many times in their final years at Hogwarts, in which Remus would try to convince Sirius of his worth and Sirius would backhandedly denounce his attempts, growing ever-more disillusioned with his placement in Gryffindor when every fibre of his being had been groomed to wear emerald and silver. Perhaps these nagging thoughts were the reason he felt so guilty for the death of the Potters—because wickedness was at his foundation, at his core. Even if he had not been their Secret Keeper, he allowed their death.

After carefully studying Sirius’s face and waiting a beat for him to retort, Remus continued, ‘Regardless, the point still stands; I seem to “wound you” quite frequently. Though I’ll admit, your flare for the dramatics certainly does not flatter me in that department.’ Remus said this with earnest, hoping to pull a reaction from Sirius—to pull Sirius out of the shallow grave which Azkaban had dug for him.

He was successful. Sirius scowled then, an expression that painfully contorted the features of his skeletal face but betrayed a quiet delight. ‘I am _not_ a drama queen.’

‘All right, yeah. You’re not a drama queen,’ Remus said dryly, regarding the cuticles of his thumbnail with a bored glance.

‘Okay, fine! I will concede that I _was_ a drama queen in our Hogwarts days. But I would have been far less wounded all of those times if you weren’t such a jobsworth and spoilsport.’

Remus shrugged noncommittally. ‘Well, _that_ wasn’t my fault. I wanted to be prefect—not that I had much competition with you lot always wreaking havoc somewhere on the grounds.’ An uncomfortable silence blanketed the parlour as Remus and Sirius remembered—‘you lot’ had once included Peter. Both men felt unspeakable guilt writhe beneath their skin: Sirius for allowing Peter’s guilt, and Remus for believing in Sirius’s. ‘Would you like to… talk about it?’

Sirius ran his hand over his face, that stony expression from that afternoon returning and his posture sagging slightly. ‘Not today.’

‘I understand.’ There were pains that Remus was not ready to discuss either.

They regarded each other warily from across the room. Remus studied the parts of Sirius’s collarbone which protruded achingly from Sirius’s sternum, committing the tight dips and curves of his chest plate to memory. Tattoos of which Remus did not know the origin screamed to be deciphered, and Remus scrutinised them as if they were an arithmancy equation which he desperately wanted to answer. Sirius had trimmed his hair and properly cleaned himself up since his two years on the run, but this care did not wash away the suffering that the man had undergone in Azkaban. His eyes were the dim grey of dishwater, lacking the verve which Remus had always associated with them.

Sirius studied Remus in turn. Remus’s condition had been no kinder to him than Azkaban had been to Sirius. Scars gnarled his delicate hands, and Sirius had to resist the urge to close the space between them and lightly run a finger along the gash that marred his face. When Remus cautiously spoke again, Sirius flinched, hoping that his staring wasn’t too obvious. ‘Do you remember the night that James accidentally got himself into a punch-up with a particularly nasty Grindylow?’

Sirius shoulders rolled back as he grinned impishly; for a moment, Remus thought that that spark might have returned. ‘How could I forget? Poor bloke barely made it out alive, if my memory serves me correctly.’

They spent the rest of the evening like this, exchanging stories that made them feel youthful and recounting time after time (after time) that James committed some truly horrific atrocity in the name of wooing an unimpressed Lily. Their teas, cold to the point of congelation, sat wholly and pitifully abandoned on the floor. The sun had sunk behind the fringe of trees across Grimmauld Place before Remus thought to check his watch, utter some excuse about being late—for what, he had no explanation, as he was without job _again_ thanks to Snape’s meddling—, and hastily slip past that damn tetchy portrait of Walburga Black. Sirius watched him go with a blooming warmth which spread through his chest. He had figured that twelve years in Azkaban may have taken the tantalising possibility of that feeling away from him, just as it had taken his youth and his dignity, but talking with Remus reminded him of the life—of the humanity—of which he had once been full.

They would talk about Peter someday, about Sirius’s time in Azkaban and Remus’s long years alone and the painful James- and Lily-sized holes in both of their lives. For now, as they relearned the cadence of the other’s voice, they would speak of the things which made them happy. They had a lot of time to discuss the things which made them ache.

Later.

________________

Unwittingly, astoundingly, Remus slipped into the habit of visiting Number 12 Grimmauld Place and its quirky trio of occupants. He came round at half two each day, rapped twice at the door, and waited for Sirius to usher him inside with a smile that grew at the prospect of company—of Remus’s company. With each of these appearances, the visage of Walburga Black seemed to submit a tad further to the realisation that Remus’s presence was to become a regular dalliance, one which was vigorously supported by a particular Master of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and therefore final. By the end of a fortnight, Walburga’s shrieking fits of passion had subsided, replaced by a grudging silence and intense glare of such reproach that Remus felt as though he were sixteen again and had been caught with his hands down another boy’s trousers.

Kreacher, who recognised and mourned the loss of his only ally but who had firmly decided he did not have a head fit for a spike, returned to his _harmless_ muttering—though these mutterings seemed to be pointedly focused on the bestial qualities of werewolves and the indecency of their very existence. Remus emphatically ignored such mutterings, preferring to glance about the foyer and dim halls of Sirius’s childhood home, taking in the sweeping ceilings and grotesque decor that lined the walls as Sirius busied himself in the kitchen.

So many secrets to Sirius’s character, Remus thought, could be appropriated from the vestiges of this house. He had always fancied Sirius a hyperbolist when he spoke about the Blacks with such a malevolent viciousness that people rarely dared to broach the subject, but the days following his first encounter with Number 12 Grimmauld Place quickly changed that opinion. Remus wondered what it must have been like, living in a home that reeked of death, decay, and moral corruption, but he supposed—as he softly ran a hand over a Black family portrait in which a young Sirius’s grey eyes beseeched Remus to kindly save him or put him out of his misery—that Sirius was the answer to that question in himself. How else could an adolescent be so angry at the world that he would turn to the dysfunction, arrogance, and spite that pockmarked Sirius’s years at Hogwarts?

Armed with this knowledge and an already-gentle disposition, Remus chose to never complain about the tea. Sirius preferred to prepare it himself, grumbling at length about Kreacher’s inability to cook without the intentions of committing a rather gruesome and painful homicide. However, the years of torture and pain in Azkaban had done more than mould Sirius into a gaunt slip of a man—they had also made him a shite hand at the practises of a tea sommelier. Ritualistically, Sirius would hand Remus his cuppa, Remus would tip his head and murmur, ‘Ta,’ in response, and then both men would pretend that the earl grey that they were sipping did not taste as though Sirius had used it to do the washing up.

On one such day, as Remus waited for Sirius to join him in the parlour with that customary, if not horrendous, tea, he ran his finger along the titles which lined the bookshelves. The thick tomes exhaled dust and rumbled at Remus’s touch, and he wondered at what it must be like to have such a vast cache of books relating to Dark magic on hand. The thought both frightened him and sent a small thrill down his spine. He had been about to open and peruse a particularly fascinating book on the magizoology of acromantula when another book—a clean, new Muggle book, wedged onto the shelf as if hastily added—caught his eye, just out of reach. Remus, whose Muggle mother had instilled in him a love for reading at a very early age, held a certain fondness for Muggle books. Pulling his wand from his pocket, Remus murmured, ‘Accio,’ as he pointed at the book. It fell into his hands delicately, and he read the gilded title on the cover with reverence.

‘“The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.” If only life were that simple, eh?’

Remus started, nearly losing his hold on the book, and turned away from the bookshelf guiltily. Sirius stood in the doorway of the parlour, levitating a cup of tea on either side of him. He leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed, eyeing Remus’s hands. Remus, collecting himself, said, ‘Oscar Wilde was one talented bloke. This is one of my favourite Muggle stories.’

‘I know,’ Sirius grinned slyly, crossing the threshold of the room. ‘That’s why I’ve got it.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all! as i've continued to map out the befores and afters which this fic will explore, i've decided to connect each memory with the events of the end of the previous chapter and the beginning of the following chapter. hopefully, this format continues to work... i've really enjoyed delving into remus's and sirius's characters--they are both so complex, and they were always two of my favorites in the hp universe--, and i hope that you are enjoying how i envision their little lives together after poa.


	4. Before - Part 2 - 7th Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lily’s eyes moved between Sirius’s brightening cheeks and the portrait hole through which James and Remus had retreated. ‘Oh. Oh.’
> 
> Like a caged animal, Sirius felt the carnal need to escape the sofa and Lily’s entreating eyes. ‘I need to go. Thanks for your help, I s’pose.’
> 
> Sirius was halfway up the spiraling staircase to the seventh-year boys’ dormitory when Lily called after him. ‘By the way, Sirius. I think The Importance of Being Earnest is what you’re looking for. It’s Remus’s favourite.’
> 
> -or-
> 
> In which Sirius Black enlists the help of Lily Evans to impress an oblivious Remus Lupin.

Sirius was not one for grand romantic gestures, often taking the piss at James for his decision to forego a blissful life of bachelorhood in pursuit of a bird as barmy as Lily Evans. Their relationship, coupled with James’s status as Head Boy, had made the first few months of Sirius’s seventh year at Hogwarts tiresome and trite. A constant whirlwind of advanced coursework, Quidditch practices, and ‘Official Head Boy Duties,’ James barely had any time for his _best mate_ and _partner in mischief_ Sirius Orion Black, as he had begun to commit more and more of his already-limited schedule to courting Lily—and, Sirius suspected bitterly, shagging her whenever the opportunity presented itself. Without James and Sirius, a once-inseparable duo, to lead them, the Marauders allowed themselves to drift apart, rarely seeing each other outside of the few classes they shared, meals in the Great Hall, the dormitory each night, and the Shrieking Shack when the full moon hung in the sky. It pained Sirius beyond belief.

However, James’s betrayal of his brotherhood for a bird did have its benefits: Sirius, who had steadfastly ignored the tendrils of heat which snaked their way down to his navel and pulsed even lower at the mere mention of Remus for too long, needed Lily’s counsel.

Desperately.

Sirius approached the Fat Lady with the Map in hand, thankful that James and Lily were in a public space and, therefore, not with their knickers round their ankles somewhere surreptitious in the castle. Their names overlapped to the point of near-illegibility, but Sirius knew that Head Girl and worrywart Lily Evans would _never_ exchange more than a chaste peck if the any other member of the student body was in view. Sirius’s eyes wandered across the withered parchment, searching with interest until they fell upon two footprints marked ‘Remus Lupin.’ He was, without surprise, in the library—in his favourite alcove with the window that faced the Black Lake and the tapestry of Gabourey the Great Gorgon, by the looks of it. _Swot_ , Sirius thought fondly, imagining what class Remus may be revising for and hoping that it was not one which he was also enroled in. He had no desire to spend his Saturday writing an essay, even with December and exams looming near.

Coming to the Fat Lady’s enormity, Sirius articulated, ‘Amor gignit amorem,’ and stowed the Map in his bag.

The Fat Lady smiled benevolently in response, taking the time as her portrait slid aside to say, ‘Love is a tricky thing, Sirius Black. You must be willing to give love to receive it.’

Thoroughly not in the mood to receive love advice from a painting who was clearly feeling self-important and prophetic, Sirius called out, ‘Oh, bugger off,’ over his shoulder and stormed through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor Common Room. His cloak billowed behind him as he scanned the room, which was, thankfully, empty other than the lovebirds. James and Lily sat entangled on a sofa near the fireplace, animatedly discussing the properties of Amortentia and looking dangerously close to jumping the other and snogging them within an inch of their life. Smirking, Sirius launched himself atop the two before moaning like a wounded hippogriff and raising a dramatically limp hand to his forehead. James adjusted his askew glasses and snorted out a, ‘Wotcher, Pads,’ as Lily’s face flooded with a fiery red that matched her roots; she pulled her legs from James’s lap.

‘Budge up, Prongs. I need to speak with the lady,’ Sirius said, pitifully attempting to squeeze himself between the two.

‘You’re not here to see me?’ James sputtered indignantly as Lily’s voice rose several octaves, a falsetto that rang out as, ‘ _Excuse_ me? The _lady_?!’

‘Merlin’s left tit, James, not everything is about you. I have an important question for Evans. Really.’ Sirius inserted as much gravity into his voice as he could muster.

James slouched to the other end of the sofa, grumbling something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Tosser’ as he snatched his copy of _Quidditch Through the Ages_ from his bag and yanked it open. Lily eyed Sirius warily. ‘You aren’t in trouble again, are you? There are only so many times I can try to expunge your record with McGonagall… Maybe it’s James’s turn to give it a go. He is Head Boy, you know.’ There was a smile in her voice as she glanced over at James, who was cosying himself into the corner of the sofa and feigning interest in the chapter on Ancient Broom Games in order to better hear their conversation.

‘No, no, that isn’t it. I need the name of a Muggle book. I feel like it’s a bit pansy, one that girls might like.’

The look in Lily’s emerald eyes darkened, and she folded her arms over her jumper. ‘Listen, Sirius, if you’re here to take the mickey about my reading habits, I don’t—’

‘Evans—Lily—, please. I’m not taking the mickey. You know I’m absolute pants at Muggle Studies. Five years of it,’ purely to irritate his parents, Sirius thought darkly, ‘and I still really couldn’t tell you the difference between a telephone and a telly. They. Sound. The. Same. I just need to know the name of a play that that famous English bloke wrote. I want to read it. Honest.’

Lily’s shoulders relaxed, but her face still held some tension as she considered his words. ‘That famous English bloke isn’t much to go off of, mate. There are loads of famous English writers. Maybe William Shakespeare?’

Sirius shook his head; he was beginning to feel like a bit of an idiot. He supposed he could have gotten this information by snooping through Remus’s things, but that felt like a flagrant violation of trust—a violation of trust which would not create the solid foundation of a relationship. ‘No, that’s not it. The other one. You know, the one that was a bit barking. With the funny plays and such. I need to read it to impress… someone.’

Lily guffawed at this, and she sounded a bit like James as she replied, ‘Do mine own ears deceive me? _The_ Sirius Black, reigning champion of snogging poor, unsuspecting girls and silly bints alike without reservation, needs _my_ help in the department of romance? Blimey, Sirius. You buried the lede on that one!’

Sirius could feel a bubble of nausea rising into his throat. He could force himself to trust Lily because James did, but he worried that she might gab about this conversation to Remus, whom she often did rounds with and regarded as a close friend. That, of course, would not do. ‘Of sorts, yes. That’s what I need. But you can’t tell _anyone_. It’s meant to be a secret.’ Sirius could feel James watching him intently from the opposite end of the sofa, and his stomach sunk a bit further at the realisation that James might already know.

‘Of course.’ Lily said solemnly, but her eyes were shining as she began to pry. ‘Who is it, then? She must be Muggleborn, or at least a Half-blood, yeah? Someone with a Muggle parent. Is it Mary? No, it couldn’t be Mary, she and Peter have shagged a few too many times for you to be involved, haven’t they?’ Lily knitted her eyebrows together thoughtfully. ‘Jaqueline Brown, then? That cute sixth-year in Ravenclaw who’s always making eyes at you? She’s a brilliant Quidditch player, too. It would give you a lot to talk about between Quidditch and whatever book it is you’re thinking o—’

The portrait hole opened then, and James was on his feet in an instant and practically shouting, ‘Oi, Remus! Padfoot, it’s our _good mate_ , Remus! Fancy a game of Gobstones in the courtyard and not in the Gryffindor Common Room where we currently are, Remus?’ James grabbed the victim of his verbal assault by the elbow before he could respond, steering him back toward the portrait hole.

Sirius felt panic, bright and sharp, stab at his gut. Remus had been in the _library_ , he had _checked_. There was no way he could have made his way through the castle to the Gryffindor tower so quickly unless— _no_. It was a Saturday. Remus had taken a traveling staircase, the rickety one that lead from the restricted section of the library to the tapestry of Solomon the Sage, just two portraits away from Gryffindor’s very own Fat Lady.

The one that only appeared on Saturdays.

Sirius cursed his lack of foresight, but Remus didn’t seem to notice. He blinked at the offencive which James had mounted and stumbled to keep up with James’s long strides. ‘But I just got here. Are you feeling all right? You’re acting strange.’ He threw a look over his shoulder at Lily and Sirius on the sofa. ‘Hullo Lily, Padfoot.’

‘Strange? Me? _Never_.’ In a staged whisper that James would have never attempted if the Common Room hadn’t been empty, he added, ‘Perhaps it’s your time of the month, Moony, and _you’re_ the loopy one. Now, come along.’ And with that, the two boys were gone, leaving Lily and Sirius alone. Lily was confused; Sirius was incensed. If James’s failed attempt at nonchalance didn’t give it away, Sirius didn’t know what would.

‘I am going to _murder_ your darling boyfriend, Lily. Absolutely murder him. There will not be single fucking piece left of him, mark my words.’

Lily’s eyes moved between Sirius’s brightening cheeks and the portrait hole through which James and Remus had retreated. ‘Oh. _Oh._ ’

Like a caged animal, Sirius felt the carnal need to escape the sofa and Lily’s entreating eyes. ‘I need to go. Thanks for your help, I s’pose.’

Sirius was halfway up the spiraling staircase to the seventh-year boys’ dormitory when Lily called after him. ‘By the way, Sirius. I think _The Importance of Being Earnest_ is what you’re looking for. It’s Remus’s favourite.’

________________

‘Are you reading? For pleasure?’ Peter’s voice was incredulous as he prodded the book in Sirius’s hands with his wand. ‘The pictures don’t even move! You’re reading a _Muggle_ book for pleasure?’

‘Hush up, Pete. I’m trying to concentrate on the _words_. You’d know that that was the point of books if you knew how to read,’ Sirius spat irritably. He was still on the first act of _The Importance of Being Earnest_ and did not foresee his arrival at the second any time soon. The endless drivel of ‘Bunburying’ and ‘Ernest’ and ‘cucumber sandwiches’ made him go cross-eyed, and Sirius really felt that many of the issues which the play had discussed thus far could have been solved with the powers of Apparition, a well-brewed Polyjuice Potion, and an invisibility cloak for good measure.

Peter shrugged as he pulled on his pyjamas and rummaged about in his trunk for something. ‘No need to snipe. I just didn’t fancy you the type to venture into that aspect of Muggle culture is all. I reckoned you like films with lush American stars and rock and roll music and programmes on that moving picture box, not… what are you even reading?’ Peter squinted at the title of the book from across the dormitory.

‘ _The Importance of Being Earnest_ , whatever that even means. The whole play is barmy, if you ask me.’ _But Remus loves it_ , Sirius thought as a fist clenched in his chest, _even if I think it’s mad_. He desperately wanted to show Remus that he cared about the things that the boy held dear. The thought of talking to Remus about the play, sounding highly intellectual and properly invested as a rare, admiring smile pulled at Remus’s eyebrows and wrinkled his nose, made Sirius’s toes scrunch and stomach flip.

‘Is it for Muggle Studies?’ Peter asked, finally extracting what he had been digging for—a pair of chocolate frogs—from his trunk. He tossed one onto Sirius’s bed and unwrapped the other. ‘Damn. Another Morgana.’

‘Thanks, Pete,’ Sirius placed the book on his bedside table and snatched the chocolate up from the foot of his bed. ‘It’s not for Muggle Studies, just… Lily suggested I read it. Said I might like it.’ Which was not necessarily a lie. ‘By the way,’ he added, his mouth stuffed with the poor, decapitated head of a once-whole frog, ‘I got the Magician of Marblehead if you haven’t got it yet. I don’t collect the cards.’

‘Ta, mate.’ Sirius flicked the card toward Peter, and Peter took it from the floor and dropped it into a compartment of his trunk. ‘I imagine I have nearly the lot now.’

The dormitory fell into silence, punctuated by Peter taking notes in his copy of _Book of Spells - 7th Years_ and Sirius flipping through that _barmy_ play and, occasionally, mumbling foul words under his breath. When Remus and James finally returned from their prefect meeting—‘On a _Saturday_ , Prongs!’ Sirius had lamented when James told him that Lily had changed the schedule. ‘That girl of yours is _barking_.’—, it was past eleven o’clock, and Sirius was considerably crosser than he had been an hour prior. He was unable to stow the book away fast enough when the door to the boys’ dormitory flew open and Remus and James trundled in, discussing the new rounds schedule.

‘What’ve you got there, Padfoot?’ James asked. For a moment, that panicked feeling rose again in Sirius’s chest, but he did not detect any malice in James’s voice. In fact, he felt as though there may have been a lilt of encouragement.

Feeling steeled by this, Sirius said, ‘Erm, _The Important of Being Earnest._ Professor Quirrell recommended it to me.’ Peter raised his eyebrows at Sirius from across the room, and Sirius thanked the entirety of Merlin’s underpants drawer and maybe even half of his wardrobe, too, that Peter decided not to divulge that _he_ had been told that the suggestion had been made on Lily’s behalf. ‘It’s by some Muggle writer.’

‘Oscar Wilde.’ Remus was facing his trunk, but Sirius thought there were hints of a smile in his soft voice. ‘My mum used to read me his plays and things in the days after my transformations. They’re a bit dotty, but I always liked them.’ Remus turned to face Sirius then, and any frustration that Sirius had felt toward the play melted away at the joy in Remus’s eyes.

James gesticulated wildly to Peter behind Remus’s back, and Peter’s eyes widened in understanding as his gaze darted between the two. Sirius vaguely considered cursing both of them, but his nonverbal jinxes were not his strongest and he didn’t want to distract Remus from the conversation at hand. ‘Tell me what you think of it when you finish, Sirius,’ Remus added with a dazzling grin, pulling his jumper over his head and tousling his hair in the process.

Sirius forced himself to look away from Remus then—to stop admiring the scars which Remus loathed but Sirius longed to trace with languid but inquisitive fingers. Any thoughts he had of abandoning the play were now sorely forgotten, if only to see Remus smile like that again.

‘Course I will.’

_Swot._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all! this chapter's a bit longer than what i've done so far. i originally intended for it to be a stand-alone one-shot that was a lot longer and more fleshed out, but i really liked how it fit in with the story so far. maybe i'll go back and turn it into a one-shot too if people are interested. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ this is also the first chapter that only features sirius's perspective; you'll hear a bit more of remus's in the next one. i hope that you enjoy, though; i really loved writing lily in this one!
> 
> also--'amor gignit amorem' means 'love begets love' in latin. i think that one of the reasons sirius lashed out the way that he did in school was because he never really received love before getting to choose his family at hogwarts. it probably took him time to understand that loving others--not power, as his parents had likely instilled in him--was the key to gaining the love that he craved.


	5. After - Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘I offered the house to Dumbledore. As headquarters for the Order.’
> 
> Remus’s eyes stopped moving along the page he was reading from Aquatic Wonders of Yorkshire: A Wizard's Field Guide, but he didn’t dare look up; he had been waiting for this conversation. The anger and frustration which Sirius felt hung so heavy in his voice that it was palpable. This version of Sirius, Remus knew, was a dangerous and unpredictable one. This was the Sirius who confronted Peter on a busy Muggle street, who started a punch up with Regulus when his brother began to fill his time with Death Eaters and Dark Magic. Remus knew to tread carefully, so he turned the page and breathed out a gentle, ‘Did you?’
> 
> -or-
> 
> In which Number Twelve Grimmauld Place becomes headquarters for a resurging Order of the Phoenix, despite Remus Lupin's feeble objections.

‘I finished reading it, but I don’t think I ever told you,’ Sirius concluded with a flick of his wand. The tea on his left floated to the table beside Remus’s usual seat, and Remus tenderly replaced the book on the shelf and settled into the armchair. Sirius could hardly believe that his teenage self, typically so self-assured, could have felt so frenetic at the prospect of embarrassing himself in front of Remus—especially considering he had done so more times than he could count in the previous six years of their friendship. ‘I realised by the end of the play that I wasn’t quite the brilliant intellectual I had supposed myself to be—and, again, that I was pants at Muggle Studies—, so it really was a load of bollocks to me. I didn’t want you to think me a fool, so I decided not to bring it up again.’

‘I forgot,’ Remus responded softly, avoiding Sirius’s penetrating gaze. He remembered now the warmth which had spread through him that evening, tingling at the realisation that—for everything which made him unlike the other boys in his year—there was something which tied a thread between his heart and Sirius’s. Maybe he had chosen to forget; maybe the thought of that thread being snipped away was too much to bear. ‘Between revising for exams and practising defencive magic at all hours in preparation for joining the Order, it must have slipped my mind.’

Sirius nodded sympathetically and risked a polite sip of his tea which was, without surprise, still shite. He remembered the endless nights in the _library_ of all places, nicking books about defence from the Restricted Section and putting them to good use in the Ancient Runes classroom on the sixth floor. He remembered Marlene and Dorcas and James and Lily and all those who they had lost in the war, lights flashing around them, invincible within the confines of Hogwarts’ stone walls. ‘Those weren’t easy times. But I wanted to do something… special. For you.’

Remus snorted, even as his chest tightened at the reminder of their shared past—at the reminder of what came in the following February. ‘They weren’t, were they?’ He gazed into space, the scarred fingers of his right hand idly tapping at the arm of his chair while his left searched the air for the right words to say next. A vague pit of discomfort had settled in the space beneath his Adam’s apple; the thought of a young Sirius, incapable of sitting still through even the most interesting Charms lesson—Sirius, who set off dungbombs in the corridors and made games of racing the moving staircases purely to stave off boredom—, spending hours deciphering a Muggle book which he had no interest in solely for the sake of pleasing him made Remus feel supremely guilty.

‘I _wanted_ to do it, you know. You don’t have to look so put out.’

Remus’s mouth went dry. ‘You didn’t have to.’ _Just like you didn’t have to become an Animagus to keep me company during the full moon._

 _Just like you didn’t have to love me_.

‘What an astute observation, Moony.’ Sirius rolled his eyes, an expression which Remus thought looked both dreadfully foreign and awfully familiar on his aged features. ‘I knew I didn’t _have_ to. Merlin knows what I, a young, mischievous bloke, could have been doing instead of reading that bloody play. Getting into trouble, probably. A detention or two with McGonagall.’

‘Sirius.’ Remus sounded painfully tired. His thoughts strayed again to the end of their seventh year, to bare skin slick with sweat and soft, curling hair and whispered promises which never came true. ‘You didn’t need to go to any effort for me. I wasn’t…’ He thought of the book which he had returned to the shelf, clearly new and recently read, and continued, ‘I’m _not_ worth—’

‘Look, I know that this self-loathing thing is your brand, but really, you saved me from spending “quality time” with Peter or retching whenever I was in the general vicinity of James and Lily. If anything, _I_ owe _you_.’ When Remus’s face maintained its pained expression, Sirius huffed and added, ‘Though a thank you would be welcome now.’

Knowing that Sirius wouldn’t be able to move past this argument until he received a proper show of gratitude, Remus looked at his hands and murmured, ‘Thank you. That was very kind.’ Remus wondered if James had known that their pining was mutual when he had whisked him away to play Gobstones in the courtyard that afternoon, and his chest ached at the realisation that he would never be able to ask.

Sirius looked pleased as he took another tentative sip of his tea, and Remus’s lips quirked into a smile in spite of himself when Sirius’s visage transformed into a scowl which he directed at the cup. ‘This is God-awful.’

Remus risked a sip as well, and he had to work to keep his face from contorting into a grimace. ‘It’s not… so bad. In your defence, you were wrongly accused of a heinous crime and imprisoned for twelve years and then on the run for another two. Not a lot of time to learn to make a proper cup of tea.’ Remus attempted to inject some humour into his voice, but the joke fell flat.

Sirius pulled a disgusted face and Vanished the cups with a wave of his wand. He wondered if, maybe, Kreacher could be trusted to prepare the tea after all—even with all his _muttering_. Perhaps a rather gruesome and painful homicide would be preferable to drinking his abominations.

Sensing a lull in the conversation, Remus excused himself to peruse the bookshelf once more, and Sirius watched him scan titles with intensity before picking up a discarded copy of the _Daily Prophet_ ; his insides crumpled as he skipped over another article which refered to him as a ‘deranged madman’ and detailed his contributions to the recent disappearances. Neither man wanted to address the mounting tension which had forced Sirius to return to this place of childhood nightmares and reunited him with Remus. They had managed to avoid it for the past few weeks, but—as London sweltered in the July heat, news of Lord Voldemort’s return began to spread, and the _Prophet_ continued to propagate nasty allegations regarding Harry’s ‘bouts of madness’—they knew it would soon be inescapable. In the weeks following the dramatic conclusion of the Triwizard Tournament, Sirius had been tasked with spreading intel for Dumbledore as Padfoot—though rechristened as Snuffles, a name which Sirius wholly despised. He returned to Number 12 Grimmauld Place out of obligation, no matter how small and dreadful it made him feel. In the First Wizarding War, his place had been on the front lines. He knew that, now, that place could no longer be held for him. It would be filled by another, younger witch or wizard, supposedly one who did not have an international bounty on their head. Number 12 Grimmauld Place would have to do as his contribution.

‘I offered the house to Dumbledore. As headquarters for the Order.’

Remus’s eyes stopped moving along the page he was reading from _Aquatic Wonders of Yorkshire: A Wizard's Field Guide_ , but he didn’t dare look up; he had been waiting for this conversation. The anger and frustration which Sirius felt hung so heavy in his voice that it was palpable. This version of Sirius, Remus knew, was a dangerous and unpredictable one. This was the Sirius who confronted Peter on a busy Muggle street, who started a punch up with Regulus when his brother began to fill his time with Death Eaters and Dark Magic. Remus knew to tread carefully, so he turned the page and breathed out a gentle, ‘Did you?’

‘Molly Weasley even offered to help with the tidying; some of the rooms are full of nasty surprises. Doxies and boggarts and the like. Otherwise, the house is just grand. It’s a safe spot for the Order to meet, and it’s protected by a Fidelius Charm, you know,’ Sirius continued conversationally, as though Remus hadn’t responded.

‘Sirius, are you sure that this is the best idea? Condemning yourself to the one place which you hate most of all in order to please Dumbledore?’

Sirius slammed his copy of the _Prophet_ onto the table, scrabbling to his feet and striding toward Remus. ‘What choice do I have, Remus? If you have any other ideas, I am all ears. I live here, or I live on the streets as Padfoot. I offer the house to the Order, or I do nothing to help in the efforts to stop Voldemort’s return.’ He and Remus were toe-to-toe now.

Remus sighed and put the book aside. Standing this close, Sirius felt remnants of that delicious feeling of young love roil over him once more, and his anger dissipated as a summer storm might: quickly and without warning. ‘No, you’re right. We can sort this out.’ Remus slowly circled his fingers around Sirius’s wrist, staring into Sirius’s eyes as if to ask for permission. ‘Together?’

Sirius’s grey eyes grew a bit misty then, and he rested his forehead on Remus’s shoulder by way of response.

Together.

________________

The short journey to King’s Cross Station to see Harry, Hermione, and the Weasley children off to Hogwarts on September 1st was Sirius’s first time outside the confines of Grimmauld Place in months, and he endeavoured to make his return as leisurely as possible. Sirius’s intuits were simultaneously heightened and dulled as Padfoot; the vibrant sensations and impressions of his surroundings pulsated through to his core, though he could rarely be bothered with pursuing more than the most primal of instincts at one time. He snapped at butterflies, chased stray cats from fence posts, and begged small children on the streets for licks from their 99s. Sometimes, if the child truly delighted in his presence, they would even toss him the Cadbury Flake from the centre, which he wolfed down rapidly to avoid the glares and, in some instances, trainers of horrified parents.

Eventually, Remus tired of this dawdling—and of foiling Padfoot’s attempts to roll in curious-smelling piles of rubbish which they passed on the street—and steered all the dog’s escapades back toward London Borough of Islington and a certain grim, old road. Dog became man once more as Remus closed the front door of Number Twelve; he led the way into the basement kitchen, Remus trailing closely behind, to celebrate successfully conveying Harry to Platform Nine and Three Quarters without incident. Remus summoned two filthy glasses with a flourish, and Sirius rummaged around in the cupboard. When they sat themselves at the end of the long table, Sirius revealed his find: a bottle of nettle wine, thankfully missed in Mundungus’s drunken raid of the kitchen. Remus began to pour himself a drink as Sirius absentmindedly thrummed his fingers on the table, his thoughts on Harry’s retreating form as he climbed aboard the Hogwarts Express.

‘He’s just like James,’ Sirius was smiling, but his eyes were dull.

‘He is. He certainly inherited James’s propensity for causing trouble,’ Remus agreed, extending the bottle across the large oak table and thinking back to the additional defence lessons he had offered Harry during his third year at Hogwarts. He regreted that Sirius had not yet had the chance to be with and mentor Harry in the ways which he had—though, so long as Voldemort and his followers were taken care of swiftly, that relationship could be built soon enough. ‘Though he’s got a lot of Lily in him, too. He’s kind like she was.’

Sirius nodded, imbibing his wine—a vast improvement from the tea which pockmarked Remus’s summer visits. Each time he saw Harry, images of James at that age—stamped into his conscience every time he closed his eyes—swam into view; they were nearly impossible to dispel. If it weren’t for Lily’s brilliant green eyes anchoring him to reality, Sirius may not have been able to help slipping back through time to when he and James were fifteen and thought the world was theirs for the taking. It took everything he had to view Harry as his godson, not as the brother he had lost so many years ago.

‘I’m sorry you didn’t get more time with him this summer,’ Remus whispered, watching Sirius with soft eyes in the dim light. ‘It isn’t fair.’

Sirius crossed his arms over his chest. ‘It’s more than Lily and James got with him.’

Remus winced, his glass halfway to his lips. Droplets of wine sloshed over the rim and coated his trembling fingers. ‘You’re right.’

They finished that bottle, and a second bottle, in stilted silence, considering what James and Lily could have accomplished if their flames hadn’t been snuffed so soon. Considering how loved Harry would have been, instead of the painfully malnourished and insecure boy whom Remus and Sirius had first laid eyes on two years ago.

Feeling the emboldened by tendrils of warmth which the wine sent licking down his spine, Sirius put his hand on Remus’s across the table. Remus stared at their hands with a look of bemused amusement balanced on his blurred features; with a paralleled sense of reckless abandon incited by a bit too much to drink, he slowly turned his palm up, so that their fingers lay flush with each other. Neither moved to pull away.

After a handful of minutes passed, Sirius broke the spell. ‘How different d’you reckon things would be? If it hadn’t been for the war?’

Remus snorted without humour, withdrawing his hand from Sirius’s to swipe at the corner of his eye with his thumb. ‘Harry would not have been a marked man. Many innocent lives would have been saved.’ _We could have been happy together._

‘Lily and James would have been the best parents, if they’d only gotten the chance.’ Sirius sighed, the sound filling up the kitchen, before a waggish delight alit his eyes and he added, ‘Though, d’you remember the collywobbles James had when he found out he was going to be a father?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all! if i'm being honest, i'm not entirely happy with how this one turned out (though i loved writing about sirius as padfoot because lol), but i spent far too long trying to make it work to scrap it , so... ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ it also gives a little more context regarding where in the hp timeline this story takes place, which was really helpful for me in terms of organizing my thoughts. enjoy, and please let me know what you think of the chapter/story so far!


	6. Before - Part 3 - After Hogwarts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James stopped his pacing again to face Remus and Sirius, his cheeks glistening with tears. ‘What if I’m shite at being a dad? What if something happens to me, and little Harriet and Lily have to fend for themselves?’
> 
> Sirius balled his hands into tight fists at the very thought of James fading away in the war. Like Remus, he knew that they had already lost too much. ‘We would never let that happen. Promise.’
> 
> -or-
> 
> In which Sirius Black and Remus Lupin keep their promise to James Potter.

The year of 1978 saw many students at a crossroads as they left Hogwarts and ventured into the gritty realities of the Wizarding world. A majority of the graduated Gryffindors were invited to and readily joined Dumbledore’s secret society for fighting You-Know-Who, the Order of the Phoenix: very aptly named, as they wished for the forces of good to rise from the ashes of destruction which the Dark Lord’s reign of terror wrought. The Marauders and Lily were, of course, no exception; they were ready to put their lives on the line to fight for a movement which they recognised as bigger than themselves.

Their first year in the Order was a challenging one. Deaths and disappearances pulsed through the organisation, popping up like weeds through soil, and members found themselves constantly at odds with Voldemort and his army of blood purists and half-breed monstrosities. Missions for Dumbledore left Sirius and James feeling shamefacedly exhilarated. Sirius and James were risk-takers; Lily and Remus were not. Such was the natural order of things, and Dumbledore accepted it in his allocation of their assignments.

By some miracle, even as the Death Eaters continued to surge through the country and penetrate the Order’s defences—even as Voldemort's power grew—, Remus and Sirius were able to maintain an otherwise passable, if not quaint, life in Muggle London. Remus brewed the tea and did the washing up by hand, the way his mother did, and Sirius found himself entranced by a programme about a funny man with a blue police box and a peculiar wand on the Muggle telly that Lily had gifted them. It was all very domestic, despite their frequent comings and goings as the war raged harder and extended its grasp further.

It was over breakfast on a dreary December morning that their little lives together were forever altered. The sky teemed with clouds, threatening rain, and strong gales sent brittle leaves of winter scuttling across the cobblestone. As Remus stood by the window of their flat and made a banal comment regarding the predictability of English weather, the mirror that Sirius always kept in the pocket of his trousers burned. Instead of his reflection in the glass, Sirius was met with the face of his best friend; James’s hair stood up in unkempt tufts, as if he had been wringing his hands through it, and his eyes, blotchy and bloodshot, darted wildly behind his glasses.

Sirius took in his swollen face with concern. ‘All right, Prongs? You look like you may be coming down with a case of mumblemumps. Do you need to go to St Mungo’s?’ Sirius felt a pang of panic, knowing that St Mungo’s would not be a safe place for them. Rumours were swirling that Death Eaters had infiltrated the Janus Thickey Ward via the Imperius Curse and were using their gained status as Healers to off as many members of the resistance as possible. ‘Or, d’you reckon that a…wots-it…a doctor at a Muggle A&E would know how to heal it?’

By way of answer, James replied, ‘I need you to connect your fireplace to the Floo network as soon as possible.’ Without ceremony, his face disappeared, replaced by Sirius’s grey eyes and contorted expression of worry.

‘What was that about?’ Remus mused, moving to wrap his arms around Sirius’s front and rest his chin on Sirius’s shoulder. He hadn’t quite been able to make out what James had said, though he could tell by the quavering tone that it was not good news. ‘He sounded… rattled.’

‘I’m not sure.’ Sirius leaned his head into Remus’s, thoughts whirling. He had never seen James so visibly upset, not even when his parents had slowly succumbed to Dragon Pox and died just weeks after James and Lily married. Sirius and Remus sat with him at their bedside each night, keeping guard against the threat of an attack as Lily stroked his hair and whispered soft affirmations into his ear. Sirius tried to maintain an air of cool detachment as James stared blankly into space, unable to even hold his dying parents’ hands; though Euphemia and Fleamont Potter had practically been his parents, too, Sirius knew that someone needed to stay strong in front of them. Sirius saved his tears for the morning, when he and Remus would stumble into bed and curl around each other without even bothering to lift the covers. ‘Something’s wrong. He’s coming over. Don’t think he was in any state to Apparate.’

Remus nodded, and the two set to work in silence, removing any barriers for James’s entry. James came shooting into the flat some minutes later, his hair somehow even more worse for wear and his eyes a spectacular shade of red. Remus couldn’t think of a time when James looked so vulnerable.

As James frantically dusted soot and ash from his cloak, Remus disconnected the fireplace from the Floo network and began to mutter protective enchantments. There was an almost melodic beauty to the incantations, murmured with a sweet rhythm. The work was mindless and soothing, which he so desperately needed to distract himself from whatever terrible news James was about to deposit into their laps.

As Remus worked to secure the flat, Sirius descended upon James, offering him a seat at the table and a slice of toast with some marmite. James elected to pace about the flat instead, looking increasingly more agitated with each step.

‘What’s happening, mate? No offence, but you look unfathomably ill.’ Sirius examined his best friend’s pale face and flapping hands, trying to piece together what could have gotten him so worked up.

‘It’s Lily,’ James said, knuckles going white as he gripped at his hair.

Sirius gagged on the tea he’d been sipping; the cup fell from his hands and came crashing to the floor. Remus stumbled in his chanting but maintained a strong grip on the hilt of his wand, knowing that he needed to continue for their safety. He felt as though someone had pulled open a trapdoor beneath him, one which threatened to swallow him whole. The Order had suffered many losses recently; they hadn’t even been able to recover all of Benjy Fenwick’s remains.

But Lily, with her kind smile and soft eyes… her death would be too much to bear.

‘Evanesco,’ James muttered flatly, Vanishing the remnants of Sirius’s broken cup with a jerky wave of his wand. ‘It’s not… like that. She’s alive; she’s safe. It’s just—’

Remus ran through the long list of things that could have happened since they had seen the Potters at the last Order meeting; he hadn’t heard about anything out of the ordinary. ‘Is it serious?’ he blurted out as Sirius asked, ‘Is she sick?’

‘No, it’s not anything like that, either.’

‘Well, what—’

‘She’s _pregnant_ , okay?’ James stopped his pacing long enough to grip the back of a chair and steady himself.

Sirius and Remus exchanged a sharp, panicked look. ‘Prongs…’ Sirius said slowly, ‘You can’t have a baby.’

‘You think I don’t know that? We’re _nineteen._ We’ve only been married a few months.’

Sirius let out a long, irritated sigh. He didn’t want to be the one to tell James that he was being dense if their age and marital status were his biggest concerns—fretting was usually a task he left for Remus—, but Remus seemed unable to form coherent thoughts. ‘Well yes, there is that. We’re also a bit—preoccupied at the moment. Y’know. At war.’ Remus, who still could not quite generate any verbal output, managed to connect his elbow rather sharply with Sirius’s upper ribcage then, and Sirius yelped and hastily added with artificial cheer, ‘But it’ll be okay! You’ve had loads of practise being a parent; just look at how great Wormy turned out! And Lily’s a dab hand at everything. She’ll be a great mum.’

James shook his head. ‘No, he’s right, Moony. I can’t even—I don’t know how to raise a child.’ He tangled his hands in his hair and began to pace again; Remus winced as he watched James’s fingers snag on knots and curls.

A war was no time to raise a baby. Finally finding his voice, Remus ventured to ask, ‘Have you considered… I’m sure Dumbledore knows a Healer who could—’

‘There’s no way Lily would go along with that. Even though I don’t want it.’ He winced and corrected himself. ‘Her. Even though I don’t want her.’

Remus blinked. It was clear to him that James had informed them of the forthcoming birth as soon as he knew for himself. ‘It’s a girl? How do you know so early?’

James smiled ruefully, as if in spite of himself. ‘Lily’s convinced. She’s always in the loo, hugging the toilet. Said she keeps getting sick because the baby has already got a full head of hair, just like she did when her mum was pregnant.’

Sirius considered this. He wanted to support James however he could, if only to shoo away the fear that was pooling in his eyes and threatening to spill out at a moment’s notice. ‘Y'know, if you’re looking for baby names, I’ve heard that Sirius works for blokes _and_ birds—’

‘Oh, shut up,’ Remus said, driving his elbow into Sirius’s side a second time—albeit, much more playfully than the first. ‘Your ego does not need any more boosting.’

Sirius grinned and raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘Just an idea, Moony…’

‘Lily likes Harriet. Exclusively, it seems. Won’t budge on the name, even though I think it’s a bit outdated. But Lily’s the one who has to carry the thing—our daughter. Got to get used to saying that one.’ James stopped his pacing again to face Remus and Sirius, his cheeks glistening with tears. ‘What if I’m shite at being a dad? What if something _happens_ to me, and little Harriet and Lily have to fend for themselves?’

Sirius balled his hands into tight fists at the very thought of James fading away in the war. Like Remus, he knew that they had already lost too much. ‘We would never let that happen. Promise.’

________________

‘Sirius!’ Remus hissed, working to keep the exasperation out of his voice. ‘Stop showing off and _get down from there_. I will not help you if you hurt yourself.’

Sirius scowled, his arms still outstretched as he paused his strut across the trellis which he stood atop. ‘Y’know, I typically find your fussing rather endearing, Moony, but come _on._ We’ve been waiting for Dumbledore’s contact for hours. It’s half eleven, and nobody’s come. I can’t help it if I’m bored.’

And Sirius _was_ bored—painfully so. He, James, and Remus had been waiting on whomever it was Dumbledore was sending to give them a new assignment for the Order since just after seven. Sirius found the Muggle park which Dumbledore had chosen fucking depressing; the climbing frame was losing its bars, the sand-pit was more weeds than sand, and the roundabout desperately needed a fresh coat of paint. The only things he could do to entertain himself were charm random objects to flap about the perimeter of the playground (and occasionally ram into Remus’s forehead) and practise his balancing skills.

James and Remus sat on the wrought-iron bench beside the sand-pit. Remus’s legs were folded beneath him, and he was clearly having trouble focusing on the maps he was deciphering. His eyes kept wandering back to Sirius throughout the night, watching him swing from the climbing frame and roll about in the grass as Padfoot. Every time irritation rose in his throat at Sirius’s inability to take things seriously, it was quickly replaced by a swelling wave of affection that kept any scathing words at bay. It wasn’t Remus’s fault that Sirius looked so _darling_ , with his hair falling into his eyes as he attempted a spectacularly poor gymnastics manoeuvre to dismount the fence; he saved this sorry attempt with a frantic ‘Wingardium Leviosa!’ that rang through the empty park.

James, for his part, didn’t seem to notice Sirius’s exploits, as he was thoroughly engrossed in a book with _The Magic of Parenthood: 101 Tips for Expecting Witches, Wizards, and Warlocks_ embossed across the cover. Remus didn’t think he had ever seen James study something so intently; perhaps, unlike most of their subjects at school, parenting would not come to James so naturally.

‘If you’re so bored, come help me with these maps. They aren’t going to translate themselves,’ Remus smiled as Sirius bounded across the grass toward the bench, knowing full well that Sirius hadn’t even opened _Spellman's Syllabary_ for Ancient Runes their sixth year. ‘It’s riveting stuff, you know.’

Sirius rolled his eyes, dumping himself between Remus and James. He leaned into Remus’s shoulder, tangling his fingers in Remus’s unkempt hair and inhaling the earthy scent of sandalwood. ‘Yes, I have no doubt that—’

Sirius broke off, cocking his head to the side like a dog. The air in the park seemed to stop; it was as if time had become suspended inflight.

James didn’t seem to notice the disturbance. He frowned at _The Magic of Parenthood_ , saying, ‘D’you reckon it’s safe to let babies fly on a broomstick? The book says it isn’t, but I feel like—’ James’s voice trailed off as he noticed Remus hastily stuffing the maps into his bag and Sirius, with his head still cocked, slowly rising to his feet. James closed the book, and his hand moved toward the waistband of his trousers, where his wand rested.

‘Nox,’ Remus whispered, and the luminous tip of his wand went dark. Sirius pointed his wand at the lone streetlamp at the corner of the lot; it flickered and went out, bathing the three of them in the indigo shadows of the moon. Remus and James stood from the bench slowly, wands raised, and the three of them moved to form a sort of shoulder-to-shoulder triangle.

This was not how an Order rendezvous typically began.

An acrid, black miasma of smoke began to seep into the playground from all directions, its wisps winding and twisting through the equipment. The back of Remus’s neck prickled as the roundabout began to spin round and round of its own accord; as it did, the smoke surged violently toward it, as though it were the epicentre of some great storm.

Sirius glanced at James over his left shoulder. The moon cast strange shadows on his face, and his lips were twisted into a grimace. This James—this frightened, soon-to-be-father James—was still new to Sirius; gone was the James who ran directly into the line of danger, sometimes just for the thrill of it.

James was raising his wand toward the roundabout, his hand shaking faintly. ‘Immobulus,’ he intoned. The roundabout shrieked to a grinding halt, and the black haze stayed suspended above its spokes. Sirius exhaled a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding and took a cautious step toward the roundabout to examine it.

‘Sirius,’ Remus breathed. His stomach clenched as Sirius inched another few steps forward. ‘Don’t. It might not be safe—’

‘Oh, come off it, Remus. It’s frozen. Besides, wouldn’t you like to see some action toni—’

For another moment, time seemed to stand still. Then, without warning, the roundabout exploded, drowning out the end of Sirius's sentence. The force of the blast sent Sirius flying as Remus ducked right and James rolled left. Sirius’s body landed with a violent thud, and Remus scrambled across the grass toward him. The force of the impact left Sirius feeling jarred, and his head pounded furiously; however, he was conscious and able to stand for himself. Relief coursed through Remus as he embraced Sirius tightly, whispering, ‘Are you okay?’ into his ear.

Sirius nodded and stooped to pick up his wand, smiling brightly. ‘See? A little bit of action is _exciting_. If that’s the best the Death Eaters can do, they’re going to need to try a hell of a lot harder. I can’t believe we waited three bloody hours just for that.’ Sirius gestured toward the smouldering roundabout, which dripped with liquid flames, before turning his attention back to Remus. ‘It’s a bit underwhelming, don’t you think? _And_ our contact still didn’t show.’

James’s voice broke over Sirius’s at a much higher pitch than usual. ‘Moony, Pads… we have company.’

Six witches and wizards, clothed in hooded robes and grotesque masks, were slowly emerging from the wreckage of the playground. One of them began to cackle maniacally as Sirius grabbed for Remus’s hand, and the two backed their way toward James. ‘So sorry we kept you waiting, boys. Punctuality has never been my strongest attribute, you see, and we were terribly busy making the acquaintance of a new _friend_.’ Sirius blood went cold as he pieced together what the witch was saying.

Their contact from the Order wasn’t coming.

‘It was such a _shame_ , too,’ the witch drawled on. Her voice was distinctly shrill, but Sirius couldn’t quite place where he recognised it from. The Death Eaters continued their measured advance on the trio. ‘One measly little go with the Cruciatus Curse, and she spilled everything she knew just. Like. That. She really took the fun out of my game, the pitiful little thing. But you would be stronger than that, wouldn’t you? _Sirius Black_ , traitor to The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.’ She smiled then, sharp teeth just visible behind the hole at the mouth of her mask.

Recognition burned sharply in Sirius’s hippocampus, and he clenched his fists. ‘Hello, Bella. I can tell that this is going to be a _lovely_ family reunion.’ Sirius searched for something clever to say, to slow the Death Eaters’ descent on the three of them. ‘I heard you got married recently. Pity you didn't invite your _favourite_ cousin to the wedding.’

‘What are you _doing_?’ Remus worked to keep the panic out of his voice.

‘Stalling,’ Sirius whispered back. ‘Be ready for my mark.’

Bellatrix laughed haughtily, holding her hand up to the other Death Eaters as if to pause them. ‘My favourite cousin turned out to be a coward and a traitor.’ She looked Sirius up and down before adding, ‘Treachery runs in the family, it seems. Aunt Walburga must be so _disappointed.’_

Something in Sirius’s chest stirred vaguely at the reminder of Regulus’s death, but he forced the feeling down. He knew that Bellatrix expected him to retaliate. Instead, he gestured to the other five Death Eaters; they had begun to form a semicircle around the trio, whose backs were now pressed against the bench. ‘Six against three. Very fair odds considering everyone knows most Death Eaters are part troll.’

Remus groaned as James hissed, ‘Sirius, do _not_ antogonise them. I’d really like to go home to my wife tonight—y’know, alive. And with all my limbs.’

‘You will,’ Sirius said firmly, before slashing out with his wand in Bellatrix’s direction and bellowing, ‘Stupefy!’

Bellatrix parried the spell with ease, but the smug smile dropped from her face. The rest of the Death Eaters paused, seeming to wait for her order to attack. Remus took advantage of this hesitation; he sent Stinging Hex at his nearest opponent, while James cast a Full Body Bind on the stocky wizard to his right.

‘RUN!’ Sirius called to the others, and they turned on their heels, leapt over the bench, and sprinted away from the ruins of the playground. _This_ was the entertainment which Sirius had been hoping for all evening.

‘What are you _waiting for_? Go after them!’ Bellatrix’s strident voice echoed across the pavement, and curses streaked through the night air toward them.

‘Protego!’ James shouted, and his Shield Charm offered them a temporary relief as they continued their retreat. ‘Oi, Padfoot!’

‘What?’ Sirius shouted back through gritted teeth as he nonverbally Stunned a Death Eater who had been gaining on them.

‘I know that this is _monumentally_ bad timing, but… will you be Harriet’s godfather? Lily and I talked it over. We want it to be you.’

Sirius was taken aback by this, enough so that he almost tripped over his own feet as he swung his head round to look at James better. Remus was beaming, as though he were already in on a wonderful secret—or, perhaps, because this would make him a godfather by proximity. ‘Are you serious?’

‘‘Course I am. Wouldn’t dream of asking anyone else.’

Sirius grinned wolfishly to hide the tears that were threatening to spill. He locked eyes with James as he vowed, ‘I’ll teach her everything I know. And Moony can help, because he knows a hell of a lot more than I do.’

Their moment was disturbed by a Killing Curse, which had been cast a bit wide and ricocheted off a low stone wall nearby. Sirius tackled James to the ground, and the spell whizzed over their heads, directly through the spot which James had just stood.

‘I think you just saved my life, mate,’ James whispered in awe. ‘See! _This_ is why Harriet needs you as a godfather!’

Though unwilling to further disrupt the brotherly love which Sirius and James were exchanging, Remus politely interrupted with, ‘Gentlemen, I think that it’s time that we make our egress a bit more permanent. Sirius, be ready to get us out of here.’ They exchanged a look, and Sirius nodded earnestly. Remus aimed his wand carefully and shouted, ‘Reducto!’

The stone wall which they had just passed burst into bits. Sirius yanked James toward him, away from the blast, and grabbed Remus’s hand. He visualised the first place which popped into his head, twisted sharply on his heal, and Disapparated the three of them with a resounding crack. The last thing he heard before it felt as though he was squeezing himself through a rubber tube was the distinct screech of his dear cousin, no doubt furious that she hadn’t managed to off him.

Remus’s knees buckled as they made contact with concrete, and he, James, and Sirius fell apart. He glanced about his surroundings, surprised that they were not in their flat. Instead, they seemed to be in front of an enclosure; Muggle animals rested inside, occasionally blinking at them with watchful eyes. ‘Are we—’

‘At the zoo, yeah.’ Sirius shrugged. Earlier in the month, he and Remus had strolled through the Muggle park hand in hand, marveling at the foreignness of it all and trying to decide what parallels could be drawn between the Muggle creatures and magical ones. ‘Because we came here a few weeks ago. To look at the monkeys. They’re quite like Demiguises, see.’ He directed the last bit of this toward James and gestured at the animals—lemurs, he had delightedly learned—fenced in behind him.

James’s breathing seemed to be returning to normal as he said, ‘That’s brilliant, mate. Thanks for getting us out of there, both of you.’

Sirius clapped James on the back, grinning. Adrenaline was still coursing through his veins as he said, ‘Told you we wouldn’t let anything happen to you.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all! this chapter was WAY longer than any of the others i've written, but i just got really into it... oops. anyway, the story if a little under halfway done, and i have the other nine chapters all mapped out, so i imagine i'll be done writing by the end of august!
> 
> also--if you are enjoying the story, please drop a comment! i'm having some trouble gauging what's going well with it so far and would love some feedback! thank you! :)


	7. After - Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus waited with his hands folded in his lap as Sirius put his thoughts in order. ‘I thought I was so clever. So noble.’
> 
> Remus considered this. He remembered what it felt like then, when youth was an elastic band that could stretch and grow and be clever indefinitely. For eternity, even. He said softly, ‘We all did. We wouldn’t have joined the Order if we didn't.’
> 
> -or-
> 
> In which Sirius Black and Remus Lupin have a disagreement but make amends (with the help of one Molly Weasley).

‘But I didn’t.’ Sirius’s grip turned vice-like around his glass. It shattered; shards of glass glinted in the dim light of the kitchen as they scattered to the floor. ‘I let them die.’

Remus felt his heart catch. They had been making so much progress over the past months, between Order meetings and their daily ritual of cold tea and lost time; in all of those conversations, Remus willed Sirius to understand what he knew to be true: that Sirius should not have to pay the price for Peter’s treachery. That the weight of the Potters’ murders should not rest squarely on his shoulders. Just two weeks prior, they had even managed to talk about Peter’s genius contributions to the Marauders’ Christmas prank their third year, in which Peter thought to charm the angel atop each tree to make obscene hand gestures at any victim—student _or_ professor, as the porcelain angels did not seem to have a preference—who happened to walk past. It had been the first time they had discussed Peter’s place, however charred it was now, in their memories without Sirius sending his teacup hurtling to the floor out of rage or Remus choking on his words and stuttering into silence.

Remus had been proud of this progress; it was almost enough to feel as though Sirius were his to love again, even if they had not even attempted to scrutinise _that_ subject. It was almost enough to smooth out the mottled scar tissue that webbed between the two.

Almost.

‘You didn’t let them die, Sirius.’ Remus’s tone was placating, though it had an edge of desperation. The electrifying heat that had pulsated between their hands just minutes prior was gone, replaced by a cold chill that pushed them further apart, and Remus had an almost frantic desire to bring it back. Sirius was unpredictable, especially when he was angry and _especially_ when he was pissed. Drunken exploits at Hogwarts had always been rowdy and impulsive, but that was stimulating and thrilling and electrifying and wholly different: that was when Sirius was at his best. Remus was hesitant to remember what it was like when Sirius was at his worst. ‘You couldn’t—’

‘Right,’ Sirius snorted, skimming his fingers over the remnants of glass that were still in his grasp. A thin line along his palm had begun to ooze blood, but Sirius seemed unbothered; the stolid glint in Sirius’s eyes made Remus’s stomach writhe. ‘I just let Wormtail do the job. Like that’s so different.’

‘Sirius.’ Remus’s voice was unbearably patient, the kind of patient that Sirius had heard him use so many times on lost first-years and, so Sirius imagined, he used on his students in his year as Hogwarts’s Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. It made Sirius feel as though he were a petulant child who needed help lacing his trainers, and he hated it.

‘What?’ Sirius snapped, that petulant child coming through in the sharpness of his voice.

Remus willed his face to remain soft and inviting, though Sirius refused to meet his eyes. ‘You couldn’t control what Peter did.’

‘It should’ve been me.’ Sirius wasn’t sure what he meant by this. His thoughts were careening wildly in his head, and he grasped for footholds to continue the argument by voicing the first thing that flitted to the forefront.

‘But it _wasn’t_ you. Because you trusted Peter. James would have seen it as the very height of dishonour to mistrust his friends, as did you. That isn’t something to be ashamed of.’ Remus eyed Sirius across the table, still concerned about his bloodied palm. He didn’t mention the trust which had twisted away from the two of them like wisps of smoke so long ago; it wouldn’t make anything better now.

Sirius steadfastly ignored Remus’s look of concern, electing to turn his eyes down to the shards of glass that caught and warped the soft glow of evening. His lungs compressed painfully as he remembered how willingly he had trusted Peter over Remus, and one crystalline thought, honed in his twelve years at Azkaban, pierced through the drunken haze which was blurring his vision: none of this would have happened if he had swallowed his arrogance and stayed the Potters’ Secret-Keeper. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t grossly misjudged the admiration which Peter—weak, groveling, _talentless_ Peter—had always held for him and James, the far-superior wizards.

Remus waited with his hands folded in his lap as Sirius put his thoughts in order. ‘I thought I was so _clever_. So _noble_.’

Remus considered this. He remembered what it felt like then, when youth was an elastic band that could stretch and grow and be _clever_ indefinitely. For eternity, even. He said softly, ‘We all did. We wouldn’t have joined the Order if we didn't.’

When Sirius crossed his arms and sullenly refused to reply, Remus found it impossible to keep himself from blathering on; his mind felt nebulous, burdened by drink, and navigating his thoughts out loud seemed like a good enough option. ‘Though it was a bit thick, yeah? You would have gone to the grave with their secret, if it were you.’ He thought back to their first conversation in the parlour of Grimmauld Place several months prior. _Sirius was not a coward_. ‘You would’ve died before betraying the Potters. You were—are—so brave.’

It was meant as a compliment, a testament to Sirius’s enduring devotion to Lily, James, and Harry, but Remus found himself regreting the words the moment they slipped from his lips. Sirius’s new status as invalid, coupled with the thrashing guilt of making the wrong choice which had haunted him for the past fourteen years, made the praise seem hollow—mocking, even. Sirius eyes drained of any vestiges of the luster which the wine had ignited, and he shoved away from the table roughly; his chair fell to the floor with a thump that filled the kitchen. Remus grimaced as Sirius pushed a rough hand through the hair which hung in his eyes. A single curl, slick with blood, stuck to his cheek.

‘I think you need to go now.’ Sirius’s voice was flat—angry. That hardened slip of a man, the one who had suffered through the immeasurable pains of betrayal and imprisonment, had returned, as had the stony expression which sometimes slipped into the parlour with them when Sirius was having a particularly poor day.

Remus chewed on his thumbnail, eyeing Sirius with an unmasked concern. He feared that the cut on Sirius’s hand would become another scar that marred the space between them, and he worked to keep the alcohol out of his voice as he said, ‘Sirius, you are not in any state to take care of yourself.’

‘Yes, I am,’ Sirius spat. His eyes rolled slightly back into his head as he added, ‘Just go, Remus.’

And, with that, he proceeded to chunder violently into the potted Flitterbloom near his feet, an addition which Molly had hoped would brighten the kitchen and the dark meetings which it held.

________________

After their row, Remus avoided social calls at Number 12 Grimmauld Place for some time. Sirius had grudgingly allowed Remus to heal his bloodied palm, though he elected to avert his gaze as Remus cradled his hand and murmured, ‘Episkey.’ As Sirius’s skin knitted itself back together, Remus also Vanished the Flitterbloom, which already smelt horrid and dripped with amber threads of vomit, but his efforts stopped short at helping Sirius up the narrow stairwell to his bedroom. Sirius resolutely climbed the stairs alone, his back ramrod straight and his steps painfully slow and calculated.

Remus wished that Sirius would shout, or send some dark artefact toppling off the wall and down the stairs, or make a scathing remark that filled him with self-loathing; that’s what the Sirius of the past would have done. But this new Sirius, still adapting to the world beyond Azkaban and two years on the run, had dead eyes, and apathy straightened the line of his lips. If it had not been for the glimpses of the past which had peaked out during the summer, Remus might have thought that Sirius was incapable of ever containing the multitudes he had once held.

Eventually, the trudging footsteps came to a halt somewhere far above Remus, and the faint click of a door closing signaled to him that Sirius had survived his journey and it was, therefore, time for him to leave. Remus sighed, his eyes growing heavy from the wine and from the emotional whiplash which he had experienced that day, and he slogged out the door and into the crisp September air. For fear of splinching himself and without any other real options, Remus stumbled through the London Underground, which eventually deposited him far enough away from Grimmauld Place that he could angrily palm at the tears welling in his eyes without feeling the bubbling guilt which had risen in his throat like bile in the kitchen.

When Remus returned to Grimmauld Place, it was for official Order business, and he forced himself to view the dwelling strictly as the Order’s headquarters, not as Sirius’s loathed prison. Each meeting, he slipped into the kitchen and sat in the chair beside Tonks as Kingsley was rising to give his insider reports from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; he slipped out of the kitchen as Moody concluded outlining their plans for the coming weeks. In the space between these brisk entrances and exits, Remus waited for Sirius to give any indication that he was welcome to return to their usual routine, but he didn’t know how to properly apologise for what he had said, and—judging by the way Sirius stared blankly at the motes of dust which filtered through the kitchen and pointedly avoided Remus’s gaze—he didn’t think that Sirius was ready to accept an apology if it were forthcoming.

It was early October when Molly seemed to have decided that it was about time she intervene with this whole affair. She was growing tired of Sirius’s newfound proclivity for getting out of sorts, leaving empty bottles scattered about the stairs, and wholly neglecting any semblance of hygiene for days at a time.

After a particularly grueling meeting that Remus had been unable to focus on because he was busy studying the hard lines which enveloped Sirius’s face, Remus was so distracted that he didn’t even notice Moody’s dismissal; jarred by the scraping of chairs and din of Order members bidding each other goodnight, he hastily rose from his seat and moved toward the stairs which led out to the foyer.

‘Looking a bit peaky, eh Lupin?’ Moody called out to him gruffly as he snatched up his walking stick from where it rested against the wall. Remus turned round at the sound of his name and stopped in the doorway for long enough that Moody’s magical eye could rove over his body; it came to rest on the gouges which bisected his face.

Remus smiled ruefully, acutely aware that Moody’s were not the only eyes which were studying his face. He fought to keep the warmth out of his cheeks as he gestured toward the windows above. ‘Have you had a look at the moon tonight, Alastor? It’s _lovely_ —nearly full.’

The night before the full moon left Remus feeling nearly as tender as the night of. It didn’t hurt when he stood in the moonlight which spilled from behind clouds or pooled on the cobblestone, not really; it was a bit more like a searing ache which twinged just beneath the surface of his skin.

Mad-Eye just shook his head as he pushed past Remus and began to climb the steps. ‘Rest up then, laddie. I’ll see you when you’ve got a bit more colour in you, hopefully.’

By now, the kitchen was nearly empty; before Remus was able to make his quick escape, Molly—whose maternal instincts seemed to have detected the rift which had grown between Remus and Sirius—gently steered him by the elbow into the drawing room. Remus noted that her ginger hair looked a bit more frazzled than usual, and her knitted cardigan was askew. He knew how deep her worry for her family ran, and he hoped that it wasn’t causing her too much unease; Molly Weasley deserved the world.

‘All right, Molly?’ he asked kindly.

‘He misses you,’ Molly said, gesturing with her head toward the door of the drawing room. ‘This place was not a happy home for him. I imagine it’s very difficult to feel so… stuck.’

‘Skipping any pretence of a casual conversation, are we?’ Remus asked weakly, averting his eyes so that Molly could not see the guilt which brewed there. ‘I was hoping you wanted to discuss the weather.’

Molly just smiled warmly, lifting her hands so that they rested on either side of Remus’s shoulders and giving them a gentle squeeze. The gesture reminded Remus so much of his own mum and felt so genuine that Remus allowed his gaze to meet Molly’s, and she sighed. ‘Remus, my dear… you’re good for each other, you know. Balance each other out. You certainly have a better handle on Sirius’s impulses than I ever could, and _I_ raised seven children.’

‘She’s right, you know.’ Remus’s and Molly’s heads snapped toward the voice. Sirius stood in the doorway, a small smile pulling at the corners of his lips. ‘I suspect it’s from all those times that ickle Moonykins had to play prefect. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks, it seems.’

Molly’s eyes moved between Sirius’s face and Remus’s. Remus hoped his expression didn’t reflect how ill he was suddenly feeling, and he hid his face by ostensibly studying the worn toes of his shoes.

‘I’ll leave you two to it, then.’ Molly bustled past Sirius, giving his shoulder a light pat as she did, and Remus heard her join Arthur in the hallway and Disapparate with a crack.

After weeks of trying to catch Sirius’s eyes, Remus suddenly felt very bashful and _very_ adolescent under the scrutiny of his steady gaze. Sirius, for his part, was feeling an immense guilt for his behaviour throughout September. He had been too proud, and then too afraid, to admit to missing Remus’s presence at Grimmauld Place, and he found himself making a mental note to thank Molly for her meddling the next time she stopped by.

‘She was right about something else, too.’ Sirius cut off Remus before he could dolefully launch into an apology and gestured vaguely around the drawing room, his focus coming to rest on the scorched ruins of his place in The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Remus lifted his eyes from the floor and followed Sirius’s glare to the tapestry which hung on the wall. ‘This place was not a happy home for me.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all! this chapter took me for. ev. er. to write because i really wanted to get the dialogue right but was having a bit of trouble finding sirius's voice. unfortunately, as a result, his perspective's a bit lacking. it's hard to capture all of the angst that he was probably feeling, between his twelve years in azkaban and two years on the lam and being stuck in a home where he suffered so many abuses. but... eh. c'est la vie. as always, please enjoy!


	8. Before - Part 4 - 6th Year (Summer)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Just don’t do anything stupid, okay? Promise me?’ Regulus stared into Sirius’s eyes with such intensity that Sirius had to look away.
> 
> ‘Yeah, all right. I’ll be on my best behaviour. Those Death Eaters won’t even know I exist.’
> 
> Regulus stiffened slightly at the mention of Death Eaters. ‘Promise?’
> 
> -or-
> 
> In which Sirius Black does not follow the advice his brother gives him, and things end rather poorly.
> 
> tw:  
> child abuse

Living at Number 12 Grimmauld Place was generally insufferable, but Sirius found that the sweltering heat of summer made it doubly so. The July hot spell wound its way up the bannister and coiled under the door of Sirius’s bedroom on the fourth storey, leaving him sweaty and lethargic—though this unwillingness to move was favourable, anyway. With the survival instincts of a boy whose entire upbringing was disfigured by his status as utter and complete disappointment, Sirius kept mostly to his bedroom during his summer holidays home from Hogwarts. The exceptions to this rule were family meals, which Sirius _also_ found generally insufferable, and the rare occasion that he was able to sneak away to see a film at the Muggle cinema down the road or pop into a corner shop for a copy of _Men Only_ and a pack of fags. Otherwise, Sirius stayed in his room and annoyed his parents from afar with as much of a Muggle-y ruckus as he could muster.

A knock sounded at the door, and Sirius propped himself on his elbows and lazily pointed his wand at the Muggle record player which he had managed to nick from the charity shop on St Paul’s Road. The dulcet tones of Lynyrd Skynyrd began to crescendo, effectively drowning out the second and third knocks. Satisfied, Sirius settled back onto his stomach. He rapped his finger against the bottom of his pack of Cadets and pinched one out, holding its tip to the lighter that Remus had gifted him as an offering of peace after the _incident_.

With a fag between his teeth and his eyes affixed to Muggle women in various states of undress, Sirius felt like the picture of a Muggle teenager, and he reveled in it.

Unfortunately, Sirius was not able to revel for long. The banging on his door did not seem to let up; in fact, it simply grew in volume with the music. ‘Sirius!’

‘Sorry, Reg,’ Sirius called out, though he wasn’t particularly sorry. He took a long drag and let the smoke bleed out of his mouth with thoughtless precision. ‘I’m busy. Come back tomorrow, yeah?’

‘ _If I leave here tomorrow / Would you still remember me?_ ’

‘Sirius, if you don’t turn down that bloody music and answer the door like a civilised human in the next thirty seconds, I _will_ blast if from its hinges.’ Regulus sounded frustrated, and Sirius saw, in his mind’s eye, his brother yanking at the ends of his hair with his nimble Seeker’s fingers.

‘Oh, piss off,’ Sirius shouted back, but he stubbed out the fag against his headboard—directly on the Black family crest, of course—anyway and slid off his bed to usher his brother in.

Regulus took after Sirius in his appearance in many ways: his eyes were the same piercing grey, and black curls—though cropped closer to his head—framed his sharp jawline and haughty face. He wore a pair of starched silk pyjamas which didn’t even look slept in, despite his hair upholding the tousled look of one who had just rolled out of bed—a look which would have made James absolutely green with envy, Sirius thought with a pang of lonesomeness.

Appearances, however, were where their similarities began _and_ ended.

‘The music, Sirius.’ Regulus said imperiously as he drifted through the doorway, glaring at the record player. ‘If you could call it that.’

_‘Cause I'm as free as a bird now / And this bird you can not change.’_

Sirius scowled and crossed his arms. ‘What’ve you got against “Free Bird?”’

‘I refuse to dignify that question with a response,’ Regulus replied, rolling his eyes.

‘Well, _I_ think it’s brilliant,’ Sirius snapped, though he reluctantly lifted the needle from the record; in the absence of music, his bedroom was doused in silence, stiff and severe. He glowered at Regulus, inviting him to make a snide comment about the room’s general state of depravity. It wasn’t anything like Regulus’s room, which was prim and posh and decorated exactly as one might expect a future Death Eater’s room to be: absolutely _festooned_ with Slytherin colors and clippings about Lord Voldemort from the _Daily Prophet_. It was excruciatingly Pure-Blooded.

Regulus just sighed. ‘Why do you have to make it so hard on yourself?’ He gestured between the mix of Gryffindor and Muggle paraphernalia that suffocated the walls and Sirius’s bare chest and flannel pyjama bottoms. His nose wrinkled against the tang of smoke which hung in the air. ‘I swear, you’ve got a death wish.’

Sirius snorted, perching on the foot of his bed and drawing his knees toward his chest. He felt exposed under Regulus’s keen stare. ‘Maybe I do. What d’you want, Reg?’

Regulus shuffled his slippered feet. His head twitched slightly, and his eyes kept flitting toward the door as though he were afraid that somebody were listening in. Sirius’s frown deepened. ‘Mum and Dad have important… company… coming tonight. For supper. They’ve asked me to ask you to—erm—’

‘Stay in my room, make no noise, and pretend I’m not there?’

Regulus bit his lip and cast his eyes to the floor, where they came to rest on the discarded pack of Camels. He kicked at it with his big toe. ‘Something along those lines, yes.’

Sirius let out a laugh that sounded more like a bark. He almost felt bad for Regulus, who was loyal to their parents almost to a fault and begged for their attention and praise like a dog. ‘And they couldn’t ask me to do that themselves, I’m guessing? Still doing mummy and daddy’s dirty work, eh?’

‘No, I—it isn’t like that—just—Sirius, please.’ Regulus pinched the bridge of his nose, looking a bit conflicted, before continuing. ‘Just don’t do anything stupid, okay? Promise me?’ Regulus stared into Sirius’s eyes with such intensity that Sirius had to look away.

‘Yeah, all right. I’ll be on my _best_ behaviour. Those Death Eaters won’t even know I exist.’

Regulus stiffened slightly at the mention of Death Eaters. ‘Promise?’

‘C’mon, Reg, yeah. I _promise._ ’ Sirius shooed him toward the doorway, motioning to the magazine which still lay open atop his covers with a depraved grin that was mostly for show. ‘Now get out. I have some _business_ to attend to.’ With that, he slammed the door in his brother’s horrified face and flourished his wand toward the record player.

_‘Lord knows, I can't change / Lord help me, I can't change.’_

Sirius did end up having a wank later that afternoon, though he found his thoughts drifting away from the women in the nude on the pages before him and toward the warm memory of his last evening at Hogwarts. The Marauders had sprawled on the floor of the Forbidden Forest, passing a flask of Firewhiskey between them as the last sunbeams of the day filtered through the trees. Sirius had said something funny, and Remus had laughed as he raised the flask to his lips. Sirius’s Adam’s apple had bobbed in tandem with Remus’s, tongue burning with an ineffable desire. Dappled by spots of sun that glinted like stars against his pallid skin, Remus had looked like the cosmos themselves, and Sirius had forced his gaze away without quite understanding why.

After tidying himself, Sirius’s afternoon passed into evening without incident. He stayed in his room, made no noise, and pretended he didn’t exist as his parents ushered their ‘important company’ into the kitchen; he even stopped playing his Muggle records after five, though this could also be attributed to his curiosity toward the conversations happening below. His parents were using this meeting to line the coffers of Death Eaters—Sirius was sure of that much—, but he wanted to know more. He sat with his ear pressed to his bedroom door for the better part of the evening, but he couldn’t make out more than muffled banter and hushed laughter. His mother’s shrill timbre mixed with his father’s baritone, and a third voice—one that Sirius didn’t recognise—was grating and guttural; without any clear definition, the voice was almost… feral.

By nine, it sounded as though his parents and their guest had retired to the parlour for tea, which was lucky: Sirius’s stomach was grumbling mutinously. He briefly considered summoning Kreacher to fetch him some food, but the thought of the filthy little house-elf’s scornful glare and muttered insults was undesirable enough that Sirius decided to sneak down to the kitchen and scrounge up something to eat himself.

As he began his descent to the basement, Sirius desperately wished that he knew how to Apparate; taking the stairs meant passing the first floor and, by extension, the parlour. He had no interest in the potential of a confrontation with his parents, and he imagined that they were of the same mindset. Sirius held his breath as he reached the landing of the first floor. He walked along the trim of the wall with short, measured steps, careful to avoid spots which he knew creaked under any sort of pressure. He had almost made it to the other side of the landing when he noticed that the door to the parlour stood slightly ajar, allowing a thin line of light to run perpendicular to the floor. Sirius paused mid-step, staring at the door. Curiosity got the better of him, and he edged his way toward the sliver of light and put his eye to the crack.

One peek into the parlour made Sirius’s heart stop beating. His parents were seated in those bloody minging armchairs which Sirius detested. Walburga, dressed in a lavish emerald dress with a high collar and lace trim, rested her hand on the knee of Orion’s dress robes, and Sirius had to keep himself from retching at their forced show of affection. Regulus sat beside them in a simple, jet black chair which had likely been Conjured for the occasion. He had changed since Sirius had encountered him this morning; his hair was priggishly arranged around his head, and he had traded his silk pyjamas for a pair of dress robes which matched their father’s. His eyes were stationed on his hands, folded in his lap, and Sirius thought he looked utterly miserable.

However, it wasn’t his family which had caused Sirius’s chest to stutter to a halt. Sitting in a high-backed chair carved entirely from goblin bones—a relic of the Black family since the Goblin Rebellion of 1612 and which the Blacks only allowed their most honoured guests to use—was a man unlike any that Sirius had ever seen. Unlike the Blacks, who were garbed in their finest evening attire, the man wore a grimy black shirt which exposed his chest and fitted pants; his feet were bare. His long hair hung in clotted strings and, when Sirius squinted, he swore that the man’s pointed fingernails were encrusted with blood the color of rust.

This sight was too much for Sirius. He backed away from the crack hastily, all thoughts of minding the creaking floor gone from his head. One misplaced step was all it took; the floor screamed in protest under Sirius’s weight, and the sudden shift caused the door to swing further open. All heads in the parlour swerved toward the doorway, and Sirius—usually so quick on his feet—froze.

The stranger grinned at Sirius’s dark form; with his teeth bared, he looked even wilder. ‘And who do we have here?’

There was a cold fury in Walburga’s eyes that Sirius had never seen as she stood and responded, through gritted teeth and with a touch of irony, ‘My _other_ son. Sirius Orion Black, heir to The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.’ She beckoned Sirius into the room, seemingly resigned to the idea of her esteemed guest meeting one of the blights on the Black family tree.

Sirius tried to lift his chin defiantly as calculating eyes appraised his Pink Floyd t-shirt and Muggle jeans. ‘Ah. The Gryffindor, is it? I’m not surprised. No self-respecting wizard would be caught dead in _that_.’

Regulus gave a half-cough and shifted in his seat. Sirius tried to catch his attention, but Regulus’s eyes were still steadfastly glued to his hands. Regulus’s words from the morning rang in his head like a warning bell: _Just don’t do anything stupid, okay? Promise me?_

He was certain that, in Regulus’s book, this constituted as stupid.

Sirius didn’t realise that he was just standing there, slightly gawking, until Walburga’s nails made their presence painfully known on his bicep. They dug into his arm viciously, drawing small pricks of blood, as she yanked Sirius toward her and hissed in his ear, ‘You will speak when you are spoken to.’

Sirius nodded, gulping down the fear which was threatening to overwhelm him. ‘Erm, yeah, I am.’ Another sharp squeeze from his mother prompted him to add, ‘Sir.’

The man leered at him, making a show of deeply inhaling through his nose. ‘I can _smell_ your fear, boy. Not very Gryffindor of you at all.’ When Sirius, whose mouth was impossibly dry, did not respond, the man chuckled. ‘Afraid of a little werewolf, are you? I’m surprised—I heard that one of my favourite progenies is a Gryffindor in your year.’

Sirius was unable to process the man’s words fast enough as his face darkened and he added, ‘Lyall Lupin was a fool to cross me.’

Sirius’s world went entirely black for a moment; when it returned, it was tinged in red.

What he did next was _unquestionably_ stupid, by Regulus’s standards and by his own.

He shouted something profane and entirely unintelligible at Fenrir Greyback as he yanked his wand from his pocket. The image of Remus’s slender, battered body on the floor of the Shrieking Shack after the full moon clouded what little remained of his self-restraint.

Orion jumped to his feet and raised his wand, but Walburga was faster. A sharp pain bloomed across the side of Sirius’s face, and yellow spots blinked and danced in his periphery. Dazed, he lifted his fingers to the hollow beneath his left eye; they came back bloodied. The ornate ring of pure silver which Walburga wore on her right pointer finger was the same shade of crimson.

Walburga drew herself taller and shoved a finger into Sirius’s petrified face. She didn't shout or even raise her voice, which made Sirius even more afraid. ‘You _scum_. You absolute _stain_ on our family name.’ She nodded at her husband impassively, and he raised his wand again with gratuitous relish. ‘We ought to teach you a lesson.’

When the curse hit Sirius, his initial feeling was one of shock—betrayal. His parents had never shown him a lot of love, or even decency, but their spotty relationship had always been tolerable.

This astonishment quickly transformed into searing jolts that traveled down his spinal column at breakneck speed. Sirius’s neurons throbbed with a heat so unbearable that his knees buckled; he dropped to the floor as though he were a stone in water, and the agonising pain washed over him in droves. He tried to gasp for breath, but his lungs were collapsing—surely, this was what drowning felt like? His back arched against the burning sensation which pulsated through his core, trying to somehow expel it from his body—

The pain stopped as quickly as it had started. Sirius trembled for another minute on the floor, each twitch bringing about an echo of pain. He looked up from the Persian rug he laid on with difficulty, taking in his parents’ aloof stares. Greyback was grinning, as though he had just finished watching something entirely amusing. When Regulus quickly began to study his fingernails with an unabated interest and avoided his pleading eyes, Sirius realised that he was utterly without allies.

‘Get out of my sight,’ Walburga spat with a dismissive wave of her hand, as though Sirius were a bothersome fly which she had finally managed to squash.

Sirius’s fight or flight instincts finally kicked in. He scrambled up from the floor and fled up the stairs. When he reached the top storey, he threw open the door to his bedroom and began to jam as many of his possessions as he could fit into his trunk. His Gryffindor flag, Muggle posters, and photographs of the Marauders stayed stuck to the wall, but Sirius didn’t mind; he hoped they’d see it as one last middle finger.

 _This family,_ he thought darkly as he laid in wait for his parents and Regulus to retire for the evening, _is no longer mine_.

He wasn’t sure if it ever had been.

________________

‘James. _James_.’

Sirius loomed over James’s bed, staring down at his best friend in the moonlight which filtered through the curtains.

‘I’ll take three cauldron cakes, please,’ James murmured in response, a dreamy expression crossing his face, and he rolled from his back to his side.

Sirius stamped his foot in frustration. He was absolutely knackered; he hadn't quite been able to remember the way to James’s family home on the outskirts of Wimbourne, which had led to a jarring six hours of scanning the English countryside on his Silver Arrow and cursing his rotten luck. Sirius hadn’t even bothered to Disillusion himself for the trip—if Muggles saw him and he had his wand snapped for breaking the Statute of Secrecy, so be it.

Sirius tried prodding James a few times with no success before deciding to take slightly more drastic measures: he lifted the edge of James’s mattress, so that the boy rolled to the end and then, with a lurch, off the edge.

‘BLOODY HELL!’ James bellowed as he tumbled to the floor. He flailed his arms wildly, attempting to disentangle himself from his scarlet and gold blankets.

‘Evening, Prongs,’ Sirius tried to keep his voice breezy, but a tremor slipped in.

‘Wha—Padfoot?’ James blinked at him several times in the moonlight, the cogs in his brain whirring. ‘Don’t think I’m not chuffed to see you and everything, but… No offence, mate, but what the _fuck_ are you doing here?’

‘Thought I’d pay you a visit.’

‘In the middle of the bloody night? What time is it?’ James propped himself up on an elbow and stretched an arm toward his bedside table, groping blindly for his glasses.

‘Close to five, I suspect.’ Sirius dropped onto the edge of James’s bed as James finally located his glasses and shoved them roughly up the bridge of his nose.

James peered up at Sirius owlishly; it seemed that his eyes were starting to adjust to the shadows which the night cast through his window. ‘Close to five? What are you doing in Wimbourne—what are you doing in _my bedroom_ —at close to five in the morning, you prat?’

Something that felt akin to melancholy caught in Sirius’s throat, and he struggled to force the words around it as he whispered, ‘It might be easier if I just show you. _Lumos_.’

The tip of Sirius’s wand sparked, illuminating Sirius’s face and casting the rest of the room in ghastly shadows. James choked on the air which he had been inhaling as he took in Sirius’s appearance.

Sirius’s left eye was ringed with a brilliant aubergine that faded into waves of chartreuse and violet along the bridge of his nose and sharp lines of his jaw; another bruise peeked out from beneath the collar of his shirt, stretching along the front of his shoulder and chest. Angry red lines were raked into the alabaster skin of his arm.

James ogled at Sirius’s face, slack-jawed. Sirius watched as James’s eyes trailed down his body. ‘Bloody _hell_ , mate. You look like you were mauled by a Chimera. What happened?’

Sirius worked his jaw slightly, wincing at the ache he felt. ‘What d’you think? My parents happened.’

James looked horror-stricken, with his mouth still hanging open, and Sirius felt an unfair mixture of anger and jealousy bubble in his chest as he thought of the Potter family. They were so healthy, so… intact. For all of the similarities that James and Sirius shared, Sirius’s abysmal relationship with his parents would always be something which James could not quite fathom because of it.

James’s voice, closer now, startled Sirius out of his bitter thoughts; James had moved to sit next to him on the bed. When he placed a tentative hand on Sirius’s knee, Sirius flinched. Pinpricks of ghostly pain scattered through his body. ‘I always thought—well, I didn’t realise—’

‘It’s a new development. Very complicated,’ Sirius said shortly. He was truly too tired to be angry.

James seemed to understand that Sirius was not in any mood to talk about his wounds; he simply nodded and nudged Sirius’s shoulder with his own. ‘Well, you’re more than welcome to stay here. My family would love to have you for as long as you need us. Y’know,’ James reached out to ruffle Sirius’s sleek hair, ‘My mum’s always saying that she wished she had a second son.’

Sirius just nodded. His eyes were growing heavy from the six hour trip on his broom, and he desperately wanted to lie down alone and have himself a good cry.

‘Well, I… I’ll write Moony and Pete. Let them know that you’re here. I’m sure they’ll come round as soon as they get my letter.’ James gestured toward the bed, patting his hand on a pillow. ‘You can kip in my bed until we figure out other arrangements.’

With that, James—having wholly forgotten that it was still too early to properly function—trundled out the door. Sirius watched his retreating back numbly before peeling off his t-shirt and jeans and dropping his head to James’s pillow. He dreamt of his mother’s silver ring, covered in his blood, of his father’s cypress wand twisting and yanking, of Regulus’s cowardly, trembling hands. Most of all, he dreamt of Fenrir Greyback, his callous laugh replaying in his head until he felt as though he were going mad.

________________

When Sirius awoke, golden rays of evening sunlight were streaming into James’s bedroom. They glinted off of James’s stolen Snitch, which refracted the glimmering beams around the room. Sirius scrubbed his hand down his face, wincing as his pinky drifted too close to the cut beneath his eye, before glancing down at his body to survey the other damages. The bruising at his sternum looked grey in the smoulder of evening, and the pockmarks on his arms were already starting to scab over. Bile, sour and thick, rose in his throat, and he swallowed it back with a gag. He briefly considered healing his wounds before deciding against it. _Let the scars be a reminder of what they did to you_.

Someone cleared their throat softly, and Sirius flinched, looking up from his chest.

‘Sorry,’ Remus murmured, dogearing the page of a book titled _The Catcher in the Rye_ and placing it on James’s bedside table. He sat cross-legged in the padded seat of the bay window, with his back to the setting sun. His features looked impossibly soft in the gentle glow, and Sirius noticed that his hair had gotten rather longer since the end of the term; it curled in wisps at the nape of his neck _._ ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’

Sirius’s lips parted into a small grin. Remus unfolded his legs and climbed out of the bay window, moving to sit beside Sirius on the bed. ‘I Flooed in as soon as I got James’s owl. Duke Owlington caused quite a rumpus in my mum’s herb garden—think he spotted a field mouse. I might not have gotten the message if mum had gotten to him first. She wasn’t too pleased, but I think she figured she had to let me come after I told her what happened.’

Sirius was about to respond with some joke about Remus being his knight in shining armour when the memory of Greyback’s bloodied hands and sharp teeth seared into his frontal lobe. A sob rose in his chest, and he hiccoughed to keep it down.

Noticing this, Remus prattled on. ‘James is with his dad right now. I think they’re working on getting a room ready—James mentioned something about how he didn’t want a great lump like you sleeping in his bed and stealing all the blankets, the prat. Peter’ll be by in a few days. He’s in Paris on holiday with his family right now.’ Remus nudged Sirius’s bruised knee with his scarred one. ‘Forgive me if this sounds a bit daft, but… are you doing all right?’

Sirius glanced at Remus in his periphery. Even sitting down, he looked as though he had grown taller in the month since the end of their fifth year. His eyes, the deep green of moss, were inviting, and Sirius noticed a spattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose that he swore had not been there before. Tearing his eyes away from Remus’s face and choking back some foreign emotion, he muttered, ‘Not really.’

Remus nodded patiently but didn’t pry, which emboldened Sirius. He ventured to add, rather fiercely, ‘I’m never going back, y’know. _Never_.’ With somewhat less conviction, he added, ‘I don’t care if they blast me off the tapestry. I hope they do, so I can finally be rid of them.’

‘I don’t think anyone expects you to go back,’ Remus said soothingly. As though it were the most natural thing in the world, he reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a slightly rumpled Cadbury Dairy Milk. He carefully removed the foil wrapping and tilted it in Sirius’s direction. ‘Chocolate? I’ve found it always helps me.’

The gesture was so _Moony_ that Sirius almost lost his anger. Though he was entirely without appetite, he accepted a few squares of the bar; they were flavourless, though he did feel his chest lighten by a few degrees. Remus smiled to himself as he pocketed the rest, and, when Sirius moved to rest his head on Remus’s chest, he stiffened slightly but let him. Before he fell asleep, Sirius managed to murmur, 'Thank you. For coming.'

'Of course. Someone had to be here while James made an arse of himself trying to Transfigure a handkerchief into a bed fit for an aristocrat such as yourself.'

Sirius's lashes were twitching as he whispered, 'Git.'

Remus felt a twinge of something significant in the deep recesses of his brain as Sirius dozed off, and his fingers unconsciously moved to trace the bruises which adorned Sirius’s collarbone and dipped to his breastplate. He wondered if Sirius would ever share the cause of this hurt with them, but that didn’t matter right now.

All that mattered was the slight rise and fall of Sirius’s bare chest and the feeling of his beating heart so close to Remus’s. Soon, Remus felt his eyelids fluttering as well, and he fell asleep to the rhythm of Sirius’s breathing.

As they slept, something rather peculiar happened. Somehow, astoundingly, their fingers became intertwined. When they woke and jumped apart, each boy blamed himself for the encroachment and vowed to never bring it up again for fear of endless mortification.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all! this has been my favorite chapter to write so far, which makes me feel like an utterly abysmal excuse for a human being, but i haven't seen a lot of people explore why, exactly, sirius ran away from home, so it was an idea that i've been thinking about since i started writing this fic (and also, of course it has something to do with remus--our boys are so hopeless). i also really wanted to flesh out sirius's relationship with regulus a bit more, because, in my eyes, they were brothers who so desperately wanted to love each other but got stuck and just didn't know how.
> 
> also also, i feel like free bird is such a great song to represent everything that sirius wanted to tell his family, and it worked out very well that it was compliant timeline-wise with this part of the story.
> 
> anyways, please enjoy!


	9. After - Part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus tentatively placed a hand on Sirius’s knee and squeezed. ‘Today is not an easy day.’
> 
> Sirius looked from Remus’s hand to his face with a dazed expression; it was clear that his mind was working at an iniquitously slow pace. ‘I miss James, Moony. Every single day, but especially today.’ As an afterthought and a bit shame-facedly, Sirius whispered, ‘And Lily, too. And Harry.’
> 
> Remus’s chest ached as flashes of Lily’s emerald eyes and laugh like the peal of a bell, of James’s unruly curls and constantly-smudged glasses, blinked before his eyes. ‘I miss them, too.’
> 
> -or-
> 
> In which Halloween comes to pass, and—even after 14 years—Sirius Black and Remus Lupin are not quite okay.

‘I think _I_ took _your_ hand,’ Sirius said airily, studying the lines of Remus’s face with thoughtful care and ignoring the flicker of spectral pain that vibrated along the thin, white line beneath his left eye. ‘I should’ve known then and there that I fancied you.’

Remus turned his gaze back toward the ragged tapestry to avoid facing Sirius, his fingers moving to trace the threaded branches. The tapestry could have been beautiful, if it weren’t blackened by the occasional stain of dishonour to the Black family name; its golden fibres glinted against the muted light of the drawing room, and the embroidered Black posterity looked patronizingly elegant. The tips of his fingers met the smear of singed fabric where Sirius’s name should have been—where Sirius’s name _would_ have been, if it hadn’t been for him—and he caressed it with care.

Remus visualised the night after Sirius had run away, when they had laid in silence in James’s bed until supper. The memory had faded at the edges from years of repressing that past, but it came back sharply now. Sirius, stripped down to his pants, covered in flowering bruises the colour of wine and with wind-tousled hair and sleepy, red eyes. The way their hands slid together as they slept side by side. How Sirius had hidden the primary cause of his pain because it had been another _casualty_ of Remus’s furry little problem. The thought cut off Remus air supply, and he coughed into his shoulder.

‘Oh, not _this_ again.’ Sirius let out an aggravated sigh into Remus’s ear; Remus hadn’t even noticed that he had moved from the doorway.

Remus shot Sirius a sideways glare as his hand dropped from the tapestry and, after searching for the right thing to do, came to rest in the pocket of his trousers. ‘Excuse me? _This again_?’

‘You feeling guilty about _my_ choices.’ 

Remus wanted to protest that the guilt was justifiable, but he settled for, ‘I got you booted from your own family,’ when he saw the burning anger that set Sirius’s jaw.

‘Well, I booted myself from my own family, really. And I wanted to do it, you know. Wanted to make him hurt.’ Sirius’s expression grew stormier, and Remus wondered if he still saw Greyback’s bloodied hands and sharp teeth again, even after all those years. ‘That monster had it coming.’

Remus rubbed the pads of his fingers together in his pocket. ‘You could have told me.’

‘No, I couldn’t have. The guilt would’ve torn you apart. Besides,’ Sirius gestured around the room with an emphatic shrug before jabbing at his seared buds on the family tree. ‘I probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer here anyways. They would’ve found another reason to get rid of me. I was thrilled to be shot of them.’

When Remus shuffled his feet and didn’t respond, Sirius added, ‘I was much happier with the Potters anyway. They treated me like the second son they never had. And I had you lot.’

Remus nodded; the Potters had been an exceptionally kind and generous family, and he knew that Mr and Mrs Potter would have done anything for Sirius. Torn between comforting Sirius for losing two families within years of each other and preserving his own unwillingness to have another serious conversation that night, Remus murmured, ‘Thank you for sharing with me—that’s very brave of you.’

Sirius snorted without humour. ‘Can’t show my _Gryffindor bravery_ in many other ways right now, can I?’ He made a show of checking his watch, a funny Muggle contraption with just two hands. It wasn’t anything like the watches which most Wizarding families gave their children when they came of age. ‘Good _heavens_ , Moony. It’s nearly midnight.’

Remus quirked an eyebrow. He was having trouble reading what Sirius wanted of him tonight, though he could tell that his unspoken apology had been accepted. ‘Is that my cue to leave, then?’

A ghost of a smile crossed Sirius’s lips. ‘Obviously. It would be indecent if you stayed past midnight—people would _talk_ , Remus. And, as you know, I have not been in the position to be a subject of petty gossip as of late.’

Remus was almost out the door when Sirius’s voice paused him. ‘Moony?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’d like it. If you started coming by like before,’ Sirius said, his voice thick with a million other things he would very much like Remus to do but could not ask of him. ‘It gets quiet here. There are too many ghosts.’

Remus smiled to himself as he pulled out his wand to Disapparate. ‘I’d like that, too.’

________________

Halloween made its presence known amidst a rainstorm of tempestuous proportions. Strong gales of wind sent people’s umbrellas tumbling down the narrow cobblestone streets, and the heavy droplets collected on eaves and traced tears down the brightly-lit facades of shops. This poor weather, however, did not seem to encumber the frenetic excitement of Muggle children clad in colourful costumes and stomping through puddles in their Wellies—Muggle children who were often trailed by frazzled parents with the collars of their mackintoshes flipped up against the rain. They teemed the streets of Islington with undue zeal, squealing as they collected sweets and otherwise wreaked mayhem.

Remus dodged one particularly large splash from a child dressed as Action Man as he wound his way toward Number 12 somewhat aimlessly, chewing on his thumbnail and rehearsing what he would say to draw Sirius out of the abyss that the man had undoubtedly stumbled into. He didn’t mind the rain, not really, even though it plastered his hair to his head and cut through the shabby swathes that remained of his only overcoat.

Remus paused in the threshold of the Grimmauld Place, listening intently to the creaking whispers of the corridors for any signs of life. Beyond some soft nickering from Buckbeak’s room on the third storey and the now-expected mutterings of Kreacher from somewhere deep within the bowels of the house, the air felt almost dampened by a quiet stillness. Even that awful portrait on the wall seemed sullenly resigned to silence as Remus slipped into the foyer and pulled the door closed behind him. Walburga’s visage studied Remus down the bridge of her nose, sneering, but she simply huffed and crossed her arms when he cast a quick Hot-Air Charm on his clothing and began his ascent to the fourth storey.

Remus ran his hand along the banister as he climbed; a prickling sensation of unease percolated in his stomach at the thought of Sirius, coping with this colossal loss and his fault within it. Sirius, passed out in a heap on the floor. Sirius, guilt-ridden and brokenhearted and so, so alone. The stale aroma of spirits grew stronger with each landing, and, by the fourth floor, it was practically assaulting Remus’s nose. He glanced at the door across from Sirius’s, reading the neat cursive inscribed on its face:

_Do Not Enter Without the Express Permission of Regulus Arcturus Black._

It was a reminder of another thing which had been ripped away from Sirius during the war, and Remus tore his eyes away from the heavy oak paneling before he lost his nerve and slipped back into the cool night. He knew that Sirius did not deserve to spend the night alone, as much as he may have prefered it.

Remus’s light knock on the door was met with a thick silence.

‘Sirius?’ Remus queried, pressing his palms flat against the door and wrinkling his nose against the stench of liquor that radiated from within. A low rumble came from the other side of the door, which Remus took as an invitation to enter.

Sirius’s bedroom was cataclysmic. Empty bottles were strewn about the floor, some with an ochre liquid still dripping from the lip. Discarded clothing sat in rumpled heaps on every surface. The duvet was askew on the bed, and the sheets beneath were disheveled. The only colour in the room came from the walls, which instinctually transported Remus back to their Hogwarts days. The Gryffindor banner that hung prominently beside the window looked as though it had taken a thorough beating but emerged victorious. Photographs of the Marauders at school waved cheerily back at him, comically set beside motionless posters of Muggle women with outrageously pink lips and absurdly large breasts.

Padfoot lay slumped amidst the bottles that littered the carpet, making himself at home on what looked like the shredded remains of Walburga Black’s favourite dress. This, at least, was familiar: at Hogwarts, Sirius had often opted to cope with pain in his Animagus form. Pain was different as Padfoot; it was a dull ache that pinched and prodded at his skin but otherwise left him alone. Whenever he received an exceptionally poor mark on an essay or he and Remus rowed, Sirius would transform into Padfoot and curl into a tight ball on the floor of the dormitory’s wardrobe, refusing the world until he was no longer upset or too hungry to remain a dog.

Remus had a sinking feeling that neither of these would pull Sirius out of the abyss, so he ventured to do it himself. He stooped beside the massive dog on the floor and softly ran his fingers through his fur, whispering, ‘Hey, Pads.’ The dog cracked one grey, doleful eye open and observed Remus impassively.

The floor creaked as Remus settled the rest of his weight into it, leaning his back against the foot of Sirius’s bed. Padfoot looked him over again before heaving himself to where Remus sat and settling his head into the bend in Remus’s knee. They sat like this for some time, Remus stroking the swirling spots behind Padfoot’s ears and Padfoot arching his back toward the touch.

When he transformed back into his human form, Sirius laid like this for another moment, Remus’s hand still tangled in his mangy curls, before he managed to sit himself up. He looked jumbled, smudged at the edges; his customary waistcoat and trousers were replaced by a ratty dressing gown, loosely knotted at the waist and with enough holes to be considered saint-like. His hair was greasy and hung in his eyes in clumps.

Sirius looked Remus over with dull eyes. His breath reeked of alcohol and melancholy. ‘Your hair’s all wet.’

Remus smiled wryly. ‘It is. It’s raining.’

Sirius’s gaze shifted to the window, watching as the torrents of rain buffeted a small bird’s nest that was nestled into the eaves of the sloping roof. The mother bird kept her chicks huddled beneath her wings. ‘How appropriate.’

As Sirius’s eyes glazed over again, Remus let his thoughts wander to that cursed Halloween fourteen years ago. Sirius had vanished without a trace three weeks prior, and—finding himself completely isolated from the only friends he had ever had—Remus had been feeling rather sorry for himself, a self-pity which led to too many drinks at the Leaky Cauldron and an unfulfilling night with some Muggle teenager he’d met while stumbling back to his excruciatingly quiet flat. Remus had awoken the next morning to a terrible hangover, love bites speckling his chest, and an owl from Dumbledore about Sirius’s betrayal and the death of Lily and James.

‘Snivellus dropped by today,’ Sirius spat, drawing Remus out of his head. Sirius’s face was contorted into a murderous expression, though his eyes were still glazed. ‘Reckon he wanted to remind me of how useless and pathetic I am. _Today_ , of all days.’

Remus tentatively placed a hand on Sirius’s knee and squeezed. ‘Today is not an easy day.’

Sirius looked from Remus’s hand to his face with a dazed expression; it was clear that his mind was working at an iniquitously slow pace. ‘I miss James, Moony. Every single day, but especially today.’ As an afterthought and a bit shame-facedly, Sirius whispered, ‘And Lily, too. And Harry.’

Remus’s chest ached as flashes of Lily’s emerald eyes and laugh like the peal of a bell, of James’s unruly curls and constantly-smudged glasses, blinked before his eyes. ‘I miss them, too.’

Sirius’s head drooped and lolled to the side. Remus thought he might have fallen asleep until he asked, with a slur pulling at his words, ‘Will you tell me a nice story?’

Whatever Remus had been expecting Sirius to say next, it wasn’t this. He licked his bottom lip in thought. ‘I don’t think I know any good ones. Most Wizarding stories end rather poorly.’

‘A story about us, then? About Halloween? The first half of our years at Hogwarts has been a bit blurry since Azkaban.’ When Remus didn’t respond, Sirius slurred on. ‘It can even have _Wormtail_ in it, the bastard.’

‘Are you sure?’

Sirius closed his eyes and leant his head onto Remus’s shoulder. ‘Just make sure it’s happy. And that James is in it a lot.’

Remus gave Sirius’s knee another squeeze, trying to control his breathing as he registered the weightiness of Sirius’s head on his shoulder. ‘All right. Do you remember our third year, when we accidentally let all of Professor Bullwinkle’s Cornish Pixies out during the Halloween feast?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all! i've been camping and such the past week, so i haven't really had much time to write. this chapter was kind of a surprise to me--i had been planning on jumping from october to december/christmas at grimmauld place--, but i couldn't let the idea go once it came to me. get ready for some crazy marauders shenanigans next chapter!
> 
> also, i dropped a bit of a sherlock reference in here because i'm currently rewatching and johnlock is everything.
> 
> anywho, enjoy!


	10. Before - Part 5 - 3rd Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James stood with his mouth slightly agape, his hand already tangled in his thicket of hair. ‘Merlin’s pants… Minnie’s going to kill us.’
> 
> Remus snorted, gesturing toward the doorway which the pixies had disappeared through. ‘Would now be an inappropriate time for me to say I told you so?’
> 
> ‘Yes, Remus, I think that now would be a very inappropriate time for you to say you told us so,’ James said crossly, his brow furrowing.
> 
> ‘Well, I did. Consequences, remember?’
> 
> -or-
> 
> In which a Halloween prank goes vaguely wrong, but Sirius Black and James Potter are pleased with the results nonetheless.

If their first two years at Hogwarts were any indication of what to expect on Halloween, Remus knew that he should be preparing for nuclear fallout—or something else of equally epic and disastrous proportions—this year. In just their first year, James and Sirius had managed to Engorge several of the carved squashes in the Great Hall to approximately ten times their original size _and_ charm them to sing a rousing rendition of a Muggle song which Remus recognised as ‘I Put a Spell on You.’ In the chaos which ensued, several frightened Muggleborn first years accidentally overturned the Hufflepuff table, and a group of unruly Slytherins—Sirius’s cousin included—took advantage of the distraction to spike their goblets with generous amounts of Firewhiskey.

Naturally, the first-year Gryffindor boys missed the Halloween feast that night, spending it instead in the russet, stiff-backed chairs of McGonagall’s office. Sirius and James bumped elbows and chortled to themselves as Peter, rendered catatonic by the prospect of getting into trouble this early in his Hogwarts career, kept loosening his tie as though attempting to escape the gallows.

Remus, for his part, was irritated. _He_ hadn’t done anything wrong, and—while these boys had shown him a kindness, a _friendship_ , that he had never known before—he still thought they were off their trolley. He was not particularly chuffed to be on the receiving end of McGonagall’s wrath on their behalf.

The staff at Hogwarts also seemed less than thrilled by the pair’s antics, though Remus thought he may have seen a twinkle of admiration in Dumbledore’s eyes as he granted all four of them—Remus and Peter for guilt by association—Saturday night detentions through the month of November. How two eleven-year-olds with only a few months of proper magical training were able to accomplish such a feat, Remus wasn’t sure, but he _was_ sure that this practice of orchestrating Halloween-themed pranks would grow progressively more complex as James’s and Sirius’s talents were honed—and that, somehow, he would always end up involved.

The professors at Hogwarts seemed to be of the same mindset. During their Potions lesson, Professor Slughorn made a show of asking James and Sirius if they had any plans for the evening and smiling knowingly when they exchanged a look and hurriedly said, ‘Us, making plans? _Never_ , Professor.’ Despite seeming assuaged by this reassurance, Slughorn watched them add each ingredient to their Confusing Concoction with careful eyes.

Sirius cursed under his breath as he ground his lovage leaves and daisy petals into a thin, lavender paste. ‘Damn Sluggy. I was planning on nicking some of the Flobberworm mucus for tonight. Why does everyone have to think that we’re “up to something?”’

‘Well, you are “up to something,”’ Remus provided helpfully as he grabbed Peter’s wrist to keep him from adding eight daisy petals into their mortar instead of the required six. ‘After last year, can you blame him for wanting to be cautious?’

Last year, James and Sirius had managed to convince Jujube, their favourite house-elf, to slip a Laxative Potion which they had recreated from _Moste Potente Potions_ into the vegetable stew.

The results were not pretty.

‘Oh, bugger off, you,’ Sirius said with a rude hand gesture as James looked up from their potion long enough to peg Remus with a withering glare. ‘If I recall correctly, James and I were not the ones to distract Slughorn with questions about Strengthening Solutions for almost an hour during the Great Potions Storeroom Raid of 1972.’

Remus scowled at the reminder of his guilt, turning his attention to the mortar and pestle that he and Peter were sharing and making a show of grinding their ingredients into a paste with care. He knew that arguing with the two of them was out of question, so he focused his mental facilities on not letting Peter muck up their potion and hoping that, whatever it was they had planned, it wouldn’t involve him too handedly. He was not keen on the prospect of _another_ round of Saturday detentions.

‘What d’you need Flobberworm mucus for?’ Peter asked, his eyes nervously flitting between James and Sirius.

‘Doesn’t matter now,’ James said darkly. ‘We’ll just need to alter the plans a bit is all.’

Remus shook his head and tipped the contents of the mortar into the brass cauldron before him. Across the classroom, Slughorn watched on with a suspicious expression.

They received the same treatment in Transfiguration. Remus noticed Professor McGonagall’s stern eyes moving pointedly between Sirius and James during the practical application segment of their lesson. Her lips were pressed into a thin line, and her hat sat primly on her head, as though challenging the boys to risk putting a single toe out of line.

Remus tried to steer the conversation into a safer territory each time McGonagall passed their table, but James and Sirius stubbornly gravitated back to discussing their plans for the night as soon as her cape brushed Peter’s thigh and she descended upon Siobhan O’Flaherty to chastise her for managing to set her teapot aflame.

‘I know we haven’t got any Flobberworm mucus, so the Sleeping Draught is out of the question, but did you get the beetles at least?’ Sirius asked James earnestly, entirely ignoring Remus’s comment on the ‘exciting prospect of studying Fire Dwelling Salamanders in Care and Keeping of Magical Creatures tomorrow.’

Remus stifled a groan. Any plot that included something small and living meant that there was, inevitably, going to be something rather larger and living as well. James’s face lit up as he replied, ‘Of course. Picked them up from Pippin’s during our last Hogsmeade trip.’

‘ _Excellent_. Well, it looks like we’ll still have a good show toni—McGonagall alert!’

The four of them quickly dropped their eyes and studiously prodded at the teapots which they were supposed to be Transfiguring into tortoises as McGonagall strode toward their table for the fifth time that period.

‘Enjoying ourselves, boys?’ she asked as she gazed down at them over the rims of her glasses. ‘It seems to me that you are the only table among your classmates who has not been able to produce even the most _rudimentary_ of tortoises.’ She turned her attention toward James. ‘I must say, I’m surprised—I was under the impression that you excelled in Transfiguration, Mr Potter.’

Sirius hid a laugh behind his hand; James had enough good sense to look affronted. ‘ _Professor!_ I could turn a teapot into a tortoise in my sleep.’ He rolled up the sleeves of his robes for show and positioned his wand. There was a brilliant orange flash as he uttered the incantation, and a tortoise with a bright yellow and brown shell pattern sat languidly where the teapot had been. He turned back to her, beaming. ‘See? Easy.’

McGonagall gave James a rare smile. ‘Very well done—two points to Gryffindor. Perhaps your time would be better spent helping your friends to do the same instead of blathering on as you so often do in my class, then?’

James blushed good-naturedly and said, ‘You’re right, Professor. I’m on it.’

As McGonagall drifted toward another table, Peter swerved to ogle at James. ‘How’d you do that? All I’ve managed to do is give my teapot a tail, and _I’ve_ actually been trying!’

James just shrugged and turned his attention back to Sirius. ‘So, we’ve got the beetles. We just need a way to get into the Defence classroom unnoticed tonight.’

‘I think I may have that handled, though we’ll need to talk the Gobstones Club into finding a different place to meet tonight...’

The rest of the period was spent this way. Sirius and James plotted, Peter listened on with extreme interest, and Remus pinched the bridge of his nose to stave off the massive headache which was creeping in. When McGonagall dismissed the class for the day, the four of them snatched up their bags and rushed toward the door; time was of the essence, and—with the Halloween feast only three hours away—they needed to mobilise.

‘Mr Lupin. May I speak with you for a moment?’ All four of the Gryffindor boys paused in the doorway, a perfect unit. ‘ _Just_ Mr Lupin, please.’

Remus gulped as James, Sirius, and Peter blinked at him in pity and slowly exited the classroom. The full moon was fast approaching, and it seemed likely that McGonagall wanted to speak about his upcoming absence from class privately. He hated discussing his condition with professors; though he had grown accustomed to it since their first year, it still made him feel like a spectacle or oddity, and it was just another wedge that separated him from his peers.

McGonagall cleared her throat and tapped her foot, her arms crossed. ‘I suppose it would be futile for me to request that you try and exercise some semblance of control over Mr Black and Mr Potter tonight?’

Remus blanched, quickly averting his gaze to scrutinise the hem of McGonagall’s robes. He found himself wishing that she had brought up the full moon instead. ‘I’m not sure I understand what you mean, Professor.’

‘I see. I take it that I should not be expecting any sort of improper behaviour at the Halloween feast, then?’

Eyes still trained on the fraying emerald hem, Remus—sensing that he was good and caught—muttered, ‘I really couldn’t control them if I tried.’

McGonagall’s eyes softened, and she patted his shoulder. ‘I know. I was simply hoping to win the House Cup this year; Professor Flitwick has been _insufferable_ about Ravenclaw’s victory. And the Gryffindor Quidditch team really cannot afford to have its star chaser missing for its match against Slytherin because of a _detention_.’ She sighed resignedly. ‘Well, I suppose I can always hope for glory next year. On your way then, Mr Lupin.’

________________

‘Really laid it on thick, didn’t she? _Star_ chaser, she said?’ James pretended to swoon, clutching at his chest as he sat perched on the edge of Professor Bullwinkle’s desk. ‘Who knew the old bag fancied me!’

James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter were gathered in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. Devoid of its typical number of students, the cavernous ceilings and arched windows gave the room an unnerving quality that sent a shudder down Remus’s spine—perfect, Sirius had noted gleefully, for Halloween. The skeleton of a Romanian Longhorn loomed overhead, its great maw gaping as if to express its disapproval of the scheme which James had just outlined for the group.

The plan for the feast was simple enough: The second-year students had just begun their study of Cornish Pixies, which meant that Professor Bullwinkle had a stash of them stored in the wardrobe of the classroom. James intended to bribe the pixies with the beetles he had bought from Pippin’s; they were to invade the Great Hall as the Frog Choir began their customary recital of ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes,’ perform a dance choreographed by Peter—whose mum was always jabbering on about the elegance and poise of a proper waltz—, and steal away with all of the Hogwarts staff’s hats, which they would then deposit into the third-year Gryffindor boys’ dormitory for ‘safe-keeping.’ How a Sleeping Draught would have also come into this equation, Remus wasn’t sure, but he was thankful that he wouldn’t have to find out.

Remus grinned in spite of himself, watching Peter do a twirl and the pixies respond in kind; as a reward, James pushed his fingers through the bars of the cage to deposit a beetle into each of their claw-like hands. ‘She’ll give you detention during the match if you go through with this, y’know. She’ll give us _all_ detentions during the match.’ Remus didn’t care much for Quidditch—he preferred to spend his Saturdays curled up on the sofa of the Gryffindor Common Room with a book and a cup of tea—, but he did not love the prospect of the other Gryffindors resenting them for losing them House points _and_ the match. The image of Gryffindor’s rubies draining from their hourglass made Remus’s stomach squirm unpleasantly. ‘Maybe we should think about the consequences a bit more?’

Sirius threw his arm around Remus’s shoulder after noticing Remus’s scrunched expression. ‘You worry too much, Moony. What’s the worst that could happen?’

‘Losing House points, detentions, expulsion,’ Remus ticked off on his fingers. Sirius snorted as he added, ‘Provoking McGonagall’s ire.’

‘Oh, please. We won’t get _expelled_ —don’t be daft. This is harmless fun. I’ll bet even Minnie will think it’s a laugh.’

Remus eyed Sirius sideways, considering this. Though he’d never admit it—admitting it would only serve to further inflate Sirius’s titanic ego—, he didn’t hate the idea; the thought of a pixie that could fit in the palm of his hand whizzing away with Dumbledore’s designated ‘hat for special occasions’ was actually a bit comical. ‘I s’pose it’s a lot less sinister than your prank from last year. And it won’t lead to any… incidents… in the lav.’

Sirius ruffled Remus’s tawny hair, beaming, and Remus felt a tide of affection ebb and flow in his chest. ‘That’s the spirit!’

Remus turned his attention back to Peter and the pixies. Peter was in the midst of modeling a series of complex steps; with each manoeuvre, he said things like, ‘This is a simple box step—no, no no! Whoever’s _leading_ needs to start forward with the left foot,’ and ‘Now, a hover corte is a bit more difficult, so I’m going to need you to stay with m—James, one of them just _bit_ me!’ If James was phased by any of this, he didn’t let on; he simply continued to feed beetles into the cage and snatch away his fingers when the pixies got too close.

Occasionally, when Peter needed a partner to demonstrate a dip or a turn, James would hop down from his station on Professor Bullwinkle’s desk and step in, giggling endlessly about being ‘the girl’ and intentionally stumbling over his own feet and collapsing into Peter’s arms, all while making grossly inappropriate comments about Peter’s _elegance_ and _poise_. This spectacle seemed to encourage the pixies to do the same, and Peter was forced to pause his ‘dance class’ several times to chastise them for their lack of discipline.

Sirius nudged Remus with his elbow, grinning, as Peter and James switched roles—James was too tall for Peter to properly dip, despite Peter’s protestations that he needed to continue to lead because he was the one who knew the steps. ‘Don’t _ever_ let me forget this.’

Remus nudged Sirius back as James ‘accidentally’ let go of Peter’s waist and let him fall onto his back with a resounding thump. ‘ _Never_.’

After another hour of this, during which Remus and Sirius ended up playing several rousing games of Exploding Snap to pass the time and Peter and James slogged on in their choreography and bribery, Peter deemed the Cornish Pixies ready for their debut performance. Sirius glanced at the clock which hung above the blackboard and grinned; it was half five, which meant that dinner had been underway for just enough time that their absence would not rouse suspicion. The Frog Choir’s performance typically began after the final remnants of the feast vanished from students’ plates, which gave them another fifteen or so minutes to get everything into position.

‘You did it, Pete,’ James said, clapping Peter on the shoulder. ‘Didn’t think you had it in you, but you did it. We may actually pull this off.’

Remus was surprised, too; after hearing James and Sirius’s plan, he hadn’t thought they would be able to pull the prank off. In fact, he had somewhat been banking on this thought. _At least_ , he supposed to himself as he watched James shove the jar of beetles into the pocket of his bag, _there isn’t any real way this can be traced back to me._ I _didn’t do anything._

James began to pack up the rest of his belongings, having already secured the beetles in his bag. It seemed that he intended to give each pixie one last treat outside the doors of the Great Hall to ensure that they followed through with their end of the bargain. When he was done collecting his things, he moved to lift the cage from beside Professor Bullwinkle’s desk. He grunted with effort, wincing as it teetered precariously in his arms.

‘Oi, Sirius. I need you to grab the other end before I— _SHIT_!’

A deafening crash echoed through the Defence classroom, followed by the whirring sound of wingless flight. Remus turned toward the noise and stifled a laugh. The cage lay on the floor, its latch bent out of place and its door popped open. Sensing their chance at freedom, the Cornish Pixies flooded from the gaping space where the door had once been and filled up the classroom in droves. They saluted James collectively before zipping out the door and into the third-floor corridor, an endless wave of savoy blue.

James stood with his mouth slightly agape, his hand already tangled in his thicket of hair. ‘Merlin’s pants… Minnie’s going to kill us.’

Remus snorted, gesturing toward the doorway which the pixies had disappeared through. ‘Would now be an inappropriate time for me to say I told you so?’

‘Yes, Remus, I think that now would be a _very_ inappropriate time for you to say you told us so,’ James said crossly, his brow furrowing.

‘Well, I did. Consequences, remember?’

Sirius looked between James and Remus before throwing his arms into the air. He cut James off before James could articulate a proper response. ‘So, are we going to _catch them before McGonagall flays us alive_ , or are we going to sit around and argue like a couple of twats?’

‘Right, right,’ James’s face went blank as he fully processed what had happened, and then realisation dawned. ‘ _Shit_ , we have to go!’

There wasn’t enough time for them to finish gathering their things. James dropped his bag and sprinted out the room, followed closely by Sirius. Peter looked mournfully to Remus, obviously thinking about how much _more_ trouble they would be in for this slip-up. ‘We should go after them, shouldn’t we?’

Remus sighed and mentally cleared away any Saturday plans he had for the rest of the term—and for the rest of their third year for good measure. ‘Sadly.’

Peter nodded, and the two bolted out of the room. Remus wished that they had some kind of map to show them where James and Sirius had gone off to, but he figured that—given pixies’ inclination toward trickery and otherwise terrorising the Wizarding World for centuries—the Great Hall was as good a place as any to start. He and Peter rushed through the corridor and down the staircases; they had to pause once when Peter’s leg sunk into one of the vanishing steps between the third and second floor and again when Peter stumbled and sent his wand skittering across the stone. Remus was almost thankful for Peter’s clumsiness, as it delayed the inevitability of a certain death that was ready to greet them once they reached their destination.

By the time Remus and Peter burst into the Great Hall, James and Sirius had already begun to try and mitigate the damages that were being wrought, though they were met with very little success. As expected, the swarm of Cornish Pixies had wasted no time in causing absolute chaos. They were lifting students out of their seats by their ears and swinging them about; they were flinging helpings of liver and onion at each other; they were rifling through bags and fleeing with the contraband; they were tearing at the House banners which hung above each table. The Great Hall was a cacophony of screaming, squeaking, and spellwork.

The professors seemed to be struggling to determine which problem should be their primary focus. Dumbledore watched on with a serene smile plastered to his face and his hands folded in his lap as Professor Slughorn attempted to retrieve the pilfered items and Professor McGonagall worked to bring the students who had been abducted back to the ground. Professor Bullwinkle looked absolutely mortified; instead of helping to wrangle the pixies, he had his face in his hands. He rocked ever-so-slightly as he repeated to himself, ‘I should’ve kept my job at the Ministry. These children are monsters.’

Sirius noticed that Remus and Peter had caught up to them, and a grin stretched across his handsome features. A pixie sped by his head, ruffling his dark hair. ‘This is far more interesting than a silly old dance, don’t you think?’

‘Hey! I spent _hours_ teaching that dance!’ Peter spluttered indignantly.

‘Yeah, and the pixies _still_ didn’t give a damn about it!’

James sprinted by, furiously shaking his head; it appeared that a pixie had decided that his curls were a proper place to nest. ‘Will one of you think of something? I’m all out of ideas here.’

Sirius turned to Remus. ‘You’re a dab hand at Defence, Moony. What d’you reckon we should do?’

‘I dunno. Let me think.’ Remus cast his thoughts back to the lesson on Cornish Pixies that they had received from Professor Tweedie the previous year. If his memory served him correctly, her instruction had been virtually useless; the only person who even bothered to take notes in that class was some Ravenclaw boy who Remus thought might be named Gilderoy Lockhart. After letting the pixies free to demonstrate the ‘practical application’ of Defence, she had asked some members of the class to stay after and catch them, as her spell—which was along the lines of ‘Pesky pixie… something or other’—did not seem to work.

Remus remembered that Lily Evans had been the one to finally stop the rioting pixies, but what had she—

‘ _Immobulus_!’ Lily’s voice rang out above the clamor of the Great Hall, and a handful of nearby pixies froze as a periwinkle flash of light washed over them. Cottoning on, James began to do the same, and more older students followed suit. Soon, the Great Hall was filled with Cornish Pixies suspended midflight. Against the backdrop of the enchanted ceiling and floating candles, they looked like the swirling blues of a distorted galaxy.

James grinned at Sirius as the noise of the Great Hall simmered and students began to exit for the evening, dessert having been entirely forgotten in the calamity of the feast. ‘Well, that didn’t turn out too terribly, wouldn’t you say, Mr Black?’

They both turned to beam at Remus. ‘I think that you are correct in that assessment, Mr Potter. No harm, no foul, it seems.’

Remus raised an eyebrow as he watched McGonagall march toward them with a stern, determined expression. Their conversation from earlier in the day echoed in his head, and he quickly looked down to avoid making eye contact and seeing McGonagall’s disappointment in him. ‘Erm, I wouldn’t be too sure about that.’

When she reached the four of them amidst the exodus of students, Remus knew that it was time for him to kiss his Saturdays goodbye, perhaps for the rest of his tenure at Hogwarts. ‘Why is it when something bad happens, it's always you four?’

James grinned widely. ‘Whatever do you mean, Professor? We are _model_ students.’

McGonagall gestured vaguely to Professor Flitwick and Dumbledore, who were corralling all the Cornish Pixies into a magically-reinforced cage. ‘Yes, your actions tonight have certainly convinced me of that matter.’

James hung his head and tried his hand at looking ashamed, but he was still grinning. ‘Your office, then?’

‘I believe the Headmaster Dumbledore would like to see you in his office instead.’

As McGonagall retreated, Sirius and James high-fived over Remus’s head, which made Remus dig his palm into his forehead. The headache which he had managed to keep at bay for the majority of the day had made itself known, and it put him in an even fouler mood. ‘We graduated to _Dumbledore’s_ office! We’ve really reached the big leagues now!’

The four of them joined the rest of the student body in exiting the Great Hall before they trod toward the Gargoyle Corridor. Sirius and James play-wrestled the entire time, and Peter muttered to himself about how none of this would have happened if he had just been sorted into Hufflepuff. Remus desperately wanted to be annoyed by the events of the night—he did not have the same proclivity for trouble that James and Sirius did—, but his heart began to swell seditiously as he watched Sirius accidentally knock James into a suit of armour; James muttered, ‘Oh, bugger,’ as he righted it, and he promptly shoved Sirius into a stone gargoyle in retaliation. Remus thought about spending the next four and a half years like this: with friends who accepted him for what he was and who included him in all their plans anyway: absolutely bonkers or otherwise. His headache faded as quickly as it had come about.

Maybe a full docket of detentions wouldn’t be so bad after all, if it meant he got to spend even more time with these wankers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all! i had a lot of fun with this chapter--i really enjoy getting to flesh out parts of peter's character because we know so little about him from the books. this chapter may be the least wolfstar-y of what i've got so far, but i thought the context really called for a chapter about the marauders' friendship, not necessarily remus and sirius's relationship.
> 
> also, gilderoy lockhart would have technically been a few years behind the marauders, but i added him in because it made me laugh. he's one of my least favorite hp characters because he's so annoying lol.
> 
> also also, i am officially over halfway done with the story! yay! i've been crazy busy lately with the school year starting up soon, so i may be taking a hiatus for a week or two, but i will definitely keep plugging away at what comes next.
> 
> anywho... enjoy! if you are a continuing reader: thank you so much for sticking with me so far! if you are a new reader: i hope you don't think this is all crap!


	11. After - Part 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘See?’ Sirius said emphatically, punctuating his statement by pointing accusingly at Remus. ‘Rubbish. I couldn’t give a good gift to save my life.’
> 
> ‘That is a categorically false statement.’
> 
> ‘It is not. Give me one good example.’
> 
> Remus rolled his eyes and coughed back a laugh. ‘Sirius Orion Black, you absolute twit. You gave me the best gift of all.’
> 
> -or-
> 
> In which Sirius Black needs Remus Lupin to help him determine the perfect Christmas gift for Harry Potter.

‘I was right,’ Remus finished softly, shifting his shoulder under Sirius’s weight. The movement caused Sirius’s head to slip to Remus’s chest, and Sirius tried to keep the world from spinning as his stomach swooped. Something in his chest fluttered, a sensation so familiarly foreign that it left him breathless. ‘We spent the rest of that term in detention. Every single weekend. Though I think Professor Bullwinkle saw it as a punishment even more than we did, poor bloke. Between you and James, it’s no wonder he didn’t come back.’

Sirius shook off that traitorous fluttering and cast his mind back through the fog that had settled over him in Azkaban and grown thicker with age and liquor. Those first few years at Hogwarts were unbearably blurry, like a handwritten note submerged in water, and he had long since given up trying to decipher the stories they told. Hearing about a time long-forgotten from Remus—in that tone of tender, affectionate exasperation—made him feel as though those memories were his to keep once more.

Even after the retelling, details of the Halloween night in question were still a bit hazy, though flashes of Remus’s remembrance prodded their way to the forefront of his mind: Peter, warily eyeing the pixies as he demonstrated a step; James, chortling at the mess the pixies had made as they exploded into the Great Hall; Remus, elbowing him in the soft spot beneath his ribs and saying he’d never let him forget that moment. He remembered the strain in McGonagall’s voice when she had advanced on them in the Great Hall, and he thought he might remember Dumbledore lowering his voice to say that he, personally, found the whole debacle rather amusing—though that image could have been the alcohol talking.

Remus jostled Sirius out of his reminiscing with a nudge to his shoulder; the motion sent Sirius’s stomach plunging again, though this time out of fear of illness. ‘Did you fall asleep, you arsehole? You asked me to tell you a story, and you weren’t even listening!’

‘I was listening,’ said Sirius blearily, burying his head further into Remus’s chest. The story of a frankly ridiculous plot that had gone so terribly wrong did not entirely counteract the anguish he felt over Halloween and all it had come to represent, but it did lift his spirits to remember a time so... untainted. ‘You, me, James, Peter, Cornish Pixies. McGonagall and that damn disapproving look she got when you were supposed to keep us in check and you didn’t. Singing tomatoes.’

‘Singing _squash_ , Sirius.’

‘Yeah, yeah. Singing squash. A waltz. “Something Wicked This Way Comes” and Flitwick’s barmy Frog Choir. Lily saving us from more trouble and probably glaring James down—as always. You finally deciding that we were worth keeping around, even though we already knew you were a bloody _werewolf_ and didn’t give a damn.’

Sirius’s eyes were closed, mesmerised by the soft scratch of Remus’s cardigan and rise and fall of his chest, but he thought he heard a smile in Remus’s voice as he said, ‘It did take me a while to come round to the idea of liking you lot, didn’t it?’

Sirius grunted. He felt dizzy, and he couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or the proximity or the surprisingly quick rhythm of Remus’s heartbeat which made him say, ‘What did you in, then? My dashing good looks?’

Remus scoffed, absentmindedly sliding his arm around Sirius’s waist. His hand came to rest near the small of Sirius’s back, and Sirius curled into the warmth. ‘Dashing good looks? In our third year? Your memory really is gone, Pads; you were a scrawny, pimply git third year. _James_ , on the other hand…’

‘You’re right. James was always a fit bloke.’ Emboldened, and before his processing abilities caught up to his mouth, Sirius added, ‘Well, what about now?’

Remus squirmed; his hand dropped from Sirius back. ‘What do you mean?’

Sirius sat up so quickly to face Remus that his eyesight was speckled with black. Surveying his ratty dressing gown, unkempt hair, and sorry excuse for a bedroom, he realised that he was no longer the posh and proper aristocrat that he had been at Hogwarts—effortlessly handsome and without reservations. A boy who knew what he wanted and grappled with the world to get it. That Sirius would have flung himself at Remus shamelessly, but that Sirius had not been inhibited by twelve years of betrayals, of suffering, of unspoken words and promises that never came true. That Sirius was far stronger and far braver.

That Sirius was long gone.

Sirius shook his head. Without the steady beat of Remus’s heart to guide him, any boldness he felt prior drained away. He muttered, ‘Never mind.’

Remus edged away from him, accidentally knocking over a near-empty bottle in the process. Liquor sloshed over the lip, coating Remus’s knuckles, but he didn’t seem to notice. His expression was vacant, though his eyebrows were slightly drawn. ‘I don’t know if I should—this may not be a good—’ He broke off and ran his clean hand over his face, as though to scrub away the question.

Sirius, fuzzy with exhaustion and the beginnings of an atrocious hangover, braced himself for rejection as Remus chewed on his thumbnail and cast his eyes to the bottle he had knocked to the floor as if seeing it for the first time.

Unable to take the silence, Sirius quickly said, ‘Just taking the piss, of course, you don’t have to—’ His words mixed with Remus whispering, ‘You will always be the most handsome man in the room. Not even Azkaban could have changed that.’

Sirius’s mind churned at an unbearably slow pace as Remus’s words registered. ‘Pardon?’

Remus continued to stare at the floor. ‘It’s getting late. We should get you into bed.’ Remus stood, brushing imaginary specks of dust off his pants before offering his hand to Sirius. Sirius took it, and Remus guided him around the empty bottles and onto the bed. Remus looked away as Sirius pulled the covers over his chest.

Since their reunion in the Shrieking Shack, a small voice in the chasms of Sirius’s mind had written Remus off as unattainable—had decided that he didn’t deserve the man after causing him so much pain over those twelve years they were apart. Every time they grew closer, he was reminded of the look on Remus’s face as he threw a few of his belongings into his old school bag, pulled on his leather jacket and motorbike helmet, and slammed the door of their shared flat behind him. That image, seared into his left brain, kept him from believing that anything could fix all the things he had shattered with his pride and his anger and his arrogance.

The alcohol decidedly quelled that voice.

‘Remus?’ Sirius slurred, swaying slightly as he propped himself up against the headboard.

‘Yeah?’ Remus, who was almost out the door, kept his back to Sirius; the light that spilled in from the hallway outlined his sagging figure, and Sirius paused to wonder when they had gotten so old—how unfair it was that they had gotten so old apart.

‘Will you stay here tonight? With me?’

The muscles in Remus’s back contracted. ‘Whatever happened to “people will talk?”’ Remus’s voice was taut; some unspoken emotion festered underneath.

Sirius thought again to the boy he had once been, the one who threw caution to the wind and got into far too much trouble—but loved every minute of it without fear or regret. He shifted to make space on his bed. ‘Let them.’

________________

The events of Halloween night signaled a shift, slight as it may have been, in Sirius and Remus’s friendship. The next morning, when Remus slipped out of Sirius’s bed before the first rays of weak November light spilt in through the window, that traitorous fluttering crept into Sirius’s chest _again_ as he dozily watched Remus retrieve his overcoat from the floor and creep out the door. In the weeks that followed, he felt like a love-sick schoolboy, sneaking glances at Remus during Order meetings or when he came for tea and averting his eyes, blushing, when he caught Remus doing the same. He began to put more effort into managing his appearance, tailoring his clothing with a charm here or there to better fit his gaunt frame. He even purchased a book on tea-making through a Muggle catalogue—he wished he could see the look on the shopkeeper’s face when his mail order was delivered by owl—in order to practise preparing tea that didn’t taste like a load of dragon dung for Remus’s visits. When they were together, Sirius found excuses to place his hand on Remus’s shoulder, or grab Remus by the elbow, or bump into Remus’s hip with his own.

In this fashion, November flitted by with surprising speed, marked by an increase in subtle touches and eye contact that held just longer than appropriate, and December plunged Grimmauld Place into a flurry of activity for the Order. Dumbledore insisted on increased security at the Department of Mysteries, and the directive sent people in and out of Grimmauld Place on a near-daily basis. Sirius was simultaneously thankful for and resentful of the bustle; he reveled in the increased company, but he bitterly loathed that he could not be more handedly involved in the action.

After the last Order meeting before a break for the Christmas holidays, during which Kingsley droned on about the Minister’s increasing paranoia regarding Dumbledore’s vie for power and Sirius focused explicitly on the fringe of hair the brushed Remus’s forehead and fell into his eyes when he turned his head too quickly, it struck Sirius that Christmas was only a fortnight away, and panic welled up in his chest at the possibility of disappointing Harry after they were finally becoming a proper family.

Naturally, he decided to consult Remus on this issue, as Remus had taught Harry for a year _and_ was an excellent gift-giver. When their year of Gryffindors began an annual gift exchange, everybody quickly realised that it was Remus who they hoped had drawn their name.

As members of the Order began to filter out of the room and swap gifts and ‘Happy Christmas’s, Sirius grabbed the hem of Remus’s worn jumper and yanked him back into the kitchen.

‘I’ll see you after the holidays, Hestia. Enjoy visiting your mum in Manchest—Sirius, what are you doing?’

Sirius released the hem of Remus’s jumper and began to pace the length of the oak table. ‘I need your help with something.’

‘What is it?’ Remus asked earnestly, seating himself in one of the chairs and folding his hands on the table. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘I haven’t got a clue what to give Harry for Christmas.’

Remus seemed to consider this for a moment before bursting into laughter. When he noticed Sirius’s wounded expression, he coughed out, ‘I’m sorry, I just… I assumed this was going to be something important, the way you—’

‘This _is_ important, Remus!’ Sirius couldn’t have James back, but having Harry as a godson was easily the best alternative. He didn’t want to muck it up by giving him the wrong thing. ‘I want Harry to like me. I want him to know that I’m his family and that he can come to me for anything.’

‘He already knows that, Sirius. A gift isn’t going to change that,’ Remus said patiently, in that voice he reserved for lost first years, students, and—now, occasionally—Sirius when he was being particularly thick.

Sirius pouted. ‘C’mon, Moony. You taught him for a year and did those private lessons with him. You’ve got to know a thing or two about what he likes.’

‘Have you considered something Quidditch-related?’ Remus asked, steepling his fingers in front of his face in thought. ‘Harry’s spectacular. Flies better than James, I think, though I admit my expertise on the sport is probably questionable.’

Sirius thought back to his year of obsessing over finding and killing Peter, where he had taken a break from his vendetta just long enough to sneak into a Quidditch match and watch his godson play. Remus was right: Harry _was_ spectacular. He flew with such natural intuition that it was a wonder he was not born on a broomstick, and, when he was a speck amongst the grey storm clouds rolling in and the sea of scarlet robes, he looked unbearably like James.

‘I actually gave Harry his first broomstick, you know. Lily said he almost killed the cat with it.’ Sirius smiled at the memory of the letter Lily had sent him shortly after Harry’s first birthday; Remus had returned it to him recently, having been unable to pitch it when he had learned of Sirius’s hand in the Potters’ deaths.

Sirius refused to consider the implications of this gesture.

‘I remember.’ The corners of Remus’s eyes crinkled. ‘Well, that settles it, doesn’t it? Get him something for Quidditch, then.’

Sirius’s face darkened as he remembered his most recent correspondence with Harry. ‘I can’t.’ When Remus raised his eyebrows, he continued with, ‘That hag Umbridge confiscated Harry’s broom and gave him a lifetime ban on playing Quidditch for attacking Lucius Malfoy’s boy. What a load of tosh. He probably deserved it.’

‘Ah. Speaking purely from experience, I don’t doubt that Draco deserved it.’ Remus laughed without humour. ‘Now that I am no longer his teacher, I can say without hesitation that he’s one of the most unpleasant students I interacted with at Hogwarts. Really a spitting image of his dear old dad.’ Remus scowled at his folded hands.

For fear of Remus brooding over being forced out of the Defence position at Hogwarts—a decision which still made Sirius’s blood boil—, Sirius turned his attention back to the predicament at hand. Waving his hand dismissively, he said, ‘I’m not surprised. But I can’t get Harry anything for Quidditch; it’ll just be a reminder that he isn’t allowed to play anymore.’

Sirius paused in his pacing and spread his palms out flat on the table, deliberating. ‘Well, I’m plumb out of ideas, then. I give up.’

‘You can’t give up! Christmas is only a few weeks away.’

‘Just face it, Moony. I’m absolute rubbish when it comes to gift giving.’

Remus arched an eyebrow, a genuine look of surprise etched into his features. ‘You can’t possibly mean that. ’

‘I do!’ Sirius exclaimed defensively. ‘Remember our sixth year, when I didn’t know what to give you for your birthday?’

Remus snorted. ‘How could I ever forget? I think I framed it and stuck it on the inside of Peter’s trunk with a Permanent Sticking Charm.’

Sirius had gifted Remus with a very unflattering photo of James’s undesirable bits for his birthday in their sixth year. Picture James frantically searched for something to cover his knob while shooting the two-finger salute at whomever dared to view the photo.

Understandably, Peter had not been very pleased that his trunk became the photo’s final resting place.

‘See?’ Sirius said emphatically, punctuating his statement by pointing accusingly at Remus. ‘Rubbish. I couldn’t give a good gift to save my life.’

‘That is a categorically false statement.’

‘It is _not_. Give me one good example.’

Remus rolled his eyes and coughed back a laugh. ‘Sirius Orion Black, you absolute twit. You gave me the best gift of all.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, all! it took me forever to write this because the school year starts tomorrow and i currently have the attention span of a goldfish as i try to mentally prepare myself. but i had a lot of fun writing this one because it's a bit of a perspective change: most of the "present" chapters have been from remus's perspectives or split between sirius's and remus's perspectives, whereas most of the "past" chapters have been from sirius's perspectives or split between sirius's and remus's perspectives. i wanted to change things up.
> 
> channeling my inner youtuber as i say: please comment, rate, subscribe! (comment, kudos, bookmark?) i'm so thankful to see that my lil story and all the random crud in my brain is getting a bit more traction! thank you to everyone who has stuck around!
> 
> anywho... enjoy!


	12. Before - Part 6 - 5th Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lily broke into Remus’s thoughts gently as they approached the Fat Lady’s portrait. ‘Listen, Remus—oh, ignosco tibi, sorry. Listen, I don’t know what happened between you and Sirius, but whatever he did, I can guarantee you he’s sorry about it. He’s so, unbelievably sorry. You don’t have to feel obligated to forgive him, but… I wanted you to know.’
> 
> They crawled through the portrait hole in silence, and Remus bade Lily goodnight in the Common Room. She pushed a few strands that had come loose from her brilliant red plait behind her ears as she called over her shoulder, ‘I didn’t get to say this earlier, Remus, but you know what I think? You deserve the world. You shouldn’t settle for friends who won’t give it to you—but something tells me your friends would.’ With that, she disappeared up the stairs, leaving Remus alone in the Common Room with the dying embers of a fire in the hearth.
> 
> -or-
> 
> In which Sirius Black breaks Remus Lupin's trust in an immense way, and drastic measures are taken to fix it.

Remus always found the morning after his transformations the most painful, forced to face the brunt of the treachery that surfaced when the monster within reared its ugly head and howled at the full moon. He awoke as the first rays of morning light began to peek through the dusted windows of the Shrieking Shack, with his ribs cracked or one of his limbs grotesquely displaced or a deep gash in his abdomen dribbling blood onto the floor. Head throbbing against the sun, he would drag himself toward the bed and attempt to cover himself with the ratty duvet in order to maintain some level of dignity when Madam Pomfrey arrived to escort him to the Hospital Wing.

Remus liked Madam Pomfrey. She had taken up the mantle of head Healer at Hogwarts at the beginning of Remus’s first year, which meant that they had grown acquainted rather quickly as Remus grew accustomed to balancing his lycanthropy with school and Madam Pomfrey became revered by the student body for healing even the most complex of wounds, from botched curses to Magical Creatures lessons gone amiss. Of course, given all the time they spent together, Madam Pomfrey held a soft spot for Remus that she tried to hide with tough love and brisk healing sessions. She took his vitals with a disappointed look, often clucking her tongue as she helped Remus into his spare pair of robes and saying, ‘I swear, the damage gets worse every month. You really need to be more careful.’ Remus saw right through her act, though—she always slipped him extra chocolate without him having to ask for it.

Such was the natural order of things until Remus’s fifth year.

The morning after the full moon in March, with the twittering of birds beyond the window signaling the budding spring, Remus was acutely aware that something was _different_ this time. He couldn’t place what it was, but—as his bones crunched back into place and he spat the salty tang of blood from his mouth—he knew that it was not a good thing. Whenever he tried to move, a different part of his body protested vehemently, creating a pain that burned white-hot and turned his periphery into a haze of light and shadows. Giving up, Remus settled back into the floor and closed his eyes; he would have to wait for Madam Pomfrey to get him sorted.

Madam Pomfrey arrived ten minutes after sun-up, as she always did. She had with her a spare pair of robes, a bar of dark chocolate, and a phial of Essence of Dittany, as she always did. She began to examine Remus for any pressing injuries that needed to be healed as soon as possible, as she always did.

This was where the similarities stopped.

‘Forgive my language, dear boy, but Merlin’s beard! What did you get yourself into last night?’ Madam Pomfrey’s tone implied injuries far worse than usual, and Remus yelped as she prodded at his back with her wand.

‘I dunno, Madam Pomfrey. Something was different this time,’ he whispered through gritted teeth as she began to murmur the healing spells that would mend his broken spine.

Lying on the floor of the Shack, naked and shivering, he wished she could mend _all_ broken things.

As Madam Pomfrey finished her incantations, a warmth enveloped Remus’s spine and licked at his arms and legs. The jarring pain subsided like a slate wiped clean, replaced by a dull ache that pulsed at Remus’s core.

‘Thank you,’ he whispered hoarsely, gesturing vaguely toward his back. ‘For always putting me back together again.’

Madam Pomfrey nodded curtly, though Remus could have sworn he saw a tear glisten in her eyes as she said, ‘Simply doing my job. Let’s get you back to the castle.’

They picked their way through the grounds slowly, stopping several times to give Remus a moment to breathe. Each sharp intake of breath sent another shock of pain through his body, and Remus looked forward to falling into a cot—his cot, one that he had stayed in enough times that he could lay claim to it—in the Hospital Wing and sleeping it off as he always did. He hoped that the unusual severity of his wounds this time would not cause too much trouble for anyone, including himself. He had been performing rather poorly in Potions recently, and he wasn’t thrilled by the idea of missing more instruction because Madam Pomfrey was excessively worried about his health.

When Madam Pomfrey and Remus reached the Hospital Wing after twenty excruciating minutes, James was hovering in the doorway, looking nervous. Remus was surprised by James’s presence; Madam Pomfrey had a strict no-visitor rule for the morning after his transformations, as he healed best when he was given the chance to rest—an opportunity that rarely arose with Sirius and James stopping by and acting as they were wont to act.

When Remus shot James a questioning look, James quickly pushed his glasses up his nose and looked away. James looked messy, but not in the wind-swept, mussed way that he strove for. His robes were torn in several places, and a thick layer of mud caked his shoes. Remus tried to piece together why James was there, but the fatigue of the beating he had endured the previous night was setting in, effectively blocking out any critical thought and adding weight to his eyelids. He stumbled into his cot as Madam Pomfrey approached James across the room.

Madam Pomfrey looked James up and down, the wrinkles deepening on her forehead as she took in his appearance. ‘Feeling all right, Potter? Another Quidditch accident, is it?’

‘‘m here to see Remus, actually.’ The words spilled out of his mouth sheepishly.

Madam Pomfrey tutted. ‘You know my rule…’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ James flapped his hand in front of his face, as if to wave away Madam Pomfrey’s words. ‘No visitors. But I’ve got special permission from Professor Dumbledore. I need to—’ James voice cracked, and his gaze went skyward. ‘I need to talk to Remus about something that happened last night. He needs to hear it from me before he hears it from someone else.’

Madam Pomfrey narrowed her eyes at James. Seeming to decide that he was subdued enough to sit at Remus’s bedside without creating a commotion, she said, ‘Fine. Five minutes, and then it’s off to class with you, Potter.’

James nodded gratefully before hurrying over to where Remus laid. Pulling aside the hangings that sectioned Remus from view of the rest of the Hospital Wing, James slipped in and slowly lowered himself at the foot of Remus’s cot.

Remus blinked at James laboriously, still processing what he had been straining to hear moments earlier. _I need to talk to Remus about something that happened last night. He needs to hear it from me._

‘How’re you feeling, Moony?’ James asked softly. His hands twitched as they alternated between pulling at a stray curl, tugging at the sleeves of his robes, and readjusting his glasses.

Remus tried to muffle a moan before it escaped his lips. He didn’t like the pity that echoed in James’s posture. ‘Not… great. Think I broke my back last night. I don’t remember how.’

‘You look like shit,’ James said, bravely trying to insert humour into his voice. He still avoided Remus’s eyes. ‘Now I understand why Poppy doesn’t want us to see you after your transformations. This mug is scary enough to make children cry.’

Remus winced as James shifted on the cot, jostling him. ‘Why are you here, James?’

James stilled. ‘Can’t a bloke want to see one of his best mates?’

Remus tried to smile without re-splitting the healed skin of his lip. ‘What do you have to tell me?’

James coughed, and his hand went to his hair again. ‘Right to the point, I guess. Look, I really don’t know how to say this, but—’

The Hospital Wing was filled with the sound of its doors bursting open, followed by quick footsteps that reverberated through the room. Madam Pomfrey squawked something unintelligible, and her footsteps joined the melee. Remus tried to prop himself up on his elbows to see the cause of the commotion, which proved to be a poor choice; his back burned, and he was forced to lower himself down into the pillows.

James leapt to his feet as the hangings around Remus’s section were thrown aside.

‘Moony—Remus, I need to talk to you.’ Sirius stood in the space where the hangings had been, his eyes wild. Like James, he looked as though he had barely gotten any sleep; his robes were rumpled, slept-in, and his usually-silken hair was disheveled and sticking up in several places. ‘Privately.’

‘Fat chance.’ James surged forward, so he and Sirius were toe to toe. His face was contorted into a sneer of such contempt that James had never even pulled out for Snape; the sight made Remus’s stomach curdle.

Sirius tried to nudge James aside, staring directly at Remus. The intensity of his eyes made Remus’s voice stick in his throat. ‘James, please—’

‘I don’t want to hear it, Sirius.’

‘Have you considered whether Remus wants to hear it?’

James’s hazel eyes were lakes on fire. ‘Y’know, I _had_ considered that, you gormless arsehole. Why d’you think I’m here?’

‘I need to be the one to tell him what happened. You don’t understand what—’

‘You can’t say I don’t understand when I risked my neck to fix _your_ mistake—’

‘What’s going on?’ Remus hated how frail—how tired—his voice sounded as he finally managed to speak around the lump in his throat. ‘What are you two talking about?’

Both boys’ heads snapped toward Remus. Sirius’s lips moved to form an O, as if he had forgotten that Remus was there. ‘Moony—’

‘Why don’t you tell him then, Sirius? You want him to know so bad? Fine. Be my fucking guest. Tell him what you did.’ James’s voice was malicious as he turned back to face Sirius.

Sirius suddenly looked unsure of himself; the anger on his face dropped away, replaced by a look of… guilt? He scuffed his shoes against the floor and bit his lip. Watching the motion made Remus’s head ache; Sirius Black, for all his wonderful qualities, never felt guilty unless he had done something terribly, terribly wrong.

‘Remus, I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt, especially not you—’

Remus shot up in the cot again. The sudden motion sent a burst of pain up each vertebra, culminating in an explosion of dazzling lights before his eyes, and he gasped out, ‘Who else got hurt?’

James glared at Sirius, whose eyes were still on his shoes. ‘Nobody—no thanks to Sirius, though.’

Realisation seemed to be hovering just beyond reach as Remus looked from James to Sirius. ‘Someone needs to fill in the gaps for me. Please.’

‘Sirius here decided to tell Snivellus how to get past the Whomping Willow last night. Thought it would be a real fucking laugh for him to tangle with a werewolf.’ James jabbed his finger into Sirius’s chest. ‘You’re lucky I made it in time to stop him. You could’ve gotten him killed. You could’ve gotten _me_ killed.’

‘I know. I went too far.’ Sirius’s voice was barely a whisper.

James cast his eyes toward Remus, taking in his devastated expression. Remus was trying so hard to follow the conversation, to comprehend what Sirius had done, but the bone-deep weariness that always tread on the heels of the full moon jumbled James’s story. Sirius would _never_ do anything to hurt him.

The hardness in James’s voice faded slightly as he put a hand on Sirius’s shoulder. ‘I think you need to go now.’

Sirius let out a whine. ‘James...’

‘Go.’ He jerked his head toward Remus, who was finally beginning to process what had almost happened the previous night. What he had almost done—what he could have done, if James hadn’t managed to intervene. ‘You aren’t welcome here.’

Sirius looked like he wanted to protest, but he simply nodded, turned sharply on his heel, and strode away. James turned back to Remus. ‘I can explain everything later. But, for now, I think that it’s best you get some sleep. I’ll make sure that he doesn’t come back.’

Remus managed a nod before sinking back into the pillows and letting his eyes fall closed. He could feel James’s concerned eyes on the scars that decorated his face, and he waited until he heard Madam Pomfrey gently tell James that it was time for him to go before he allowed a few tears to make tracks in the dirt on his cheeks.

His friends loved to forget that he wasn’t normal, loved to pretend that he wasn’t a monster, but this was proof enough for Remus: proof that Sirius, with his family’s Pure-Blood prejudices and sleek indifference, would never entirely see him as human. Would gather up all the things he loathed about himself and put them on display for a laugh.

The thought took his carefully constructed heart and shattered it into bits.

________________

‘Is everything all right, Remus?’ Lily asked, concern colouring her voice. ‘It may not be my place to say, but you haven’t quite been yourself recently.’

Remus looked up from his prefect’s badge, which he had been distractedly fiddling with. ‘Hm?’

Remus and Lily were roaming the fifth-floor corridors on their normal Saturday evening rounds. It was 11.48, just twelve minutes before curfew, and Hogwarts—nearly empty, as most students were home for Easter hols—was unbearably quiet. Remus enjoyed the silence, reveling in the soft shuffle of their feet and swish of their robes as he and Lily methodically swept the corridors for wandering students. Lily would be Remus’s favourite prefect to conduct rounds with even if she hadn’t been his fifth-year Gryffindor counterpart; she was unusually bright, exceptionally kind, and a wonderful conversationalist. She was soft around the edges in all the places where his friends were rough and jagged. In a word, she was safe.

Most importantly, she and Remus were brought together by a shared love of classic Muggle novels and Fleetwood Mac. They understood each other.

‘Remus.’ Lily snapped her fingers in front of Remus’s face, and he blinked at her. ‘Did you hear a single word I just said?’

Remus blushed. He had been entirely caught up in his thoughts again—something that seemed to be happening more and more since the _incident_ three weeks prior. ‘Erm, no. Sorry.’

Lily heaved a laboured sigh, swatting playfully at the side of Remus’s head. ‘Thought so. As I was _saying_ —you've been off in your head for days now. You talk even less than usual; you go down to meals early and leave the Great Hall before most people even get there; you show up for prefect meetings just as they’re starting and peel off the moment Caradoc finishes releasing us.’ She wheeled around so that she and Remus were facing each other. With Lily before him, Remus stumbled to a halt to keep from knocking into her with his long stride. ‘I haven’t seen you talk to Black in weeks, and Potter and Pettigrew have been avoiding him, too. I can’t blame you, really—I've never been able to stand him—, but I thought you all were best mates.’

Remus felt his face flushing; he hadn’t thought that anyone would notice that he was slowly allowing himself to slip through the cracks. He figured that doing so would make it easier for people to accept that he would not be seeing his final two years at Hogwarts to completion. After what happened with Snape and James, he knew that, when the moon hung heavy in the sky, he was a danger. Sirius had made that painfully clear.

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Nothing?’ Lily arched an eyebrow. ‘It certainly doesn’t seem like nothing.’

Remus wriggled under Lily’s sharp gaze. ‘It is.’

Lily crossed her arms and cocked her hip, blinking at Remus expectantly. Lightning flashed in a nearby window, followed by a low rumble of thunder, but Lily did not so much as flinch at the noise. When it became clear that she was not going to move until she was given a proper answer, Remus conceded by throwing his hands into the air and saying, ‘ _Fine_. Sirius and I had a row. He broke my trust in a way that I'm not sure I could ever forgive. I don’t really want to talk about it.’

Lily’s eyebrows knit together. ‘I figured as much. Would you like to know what I—Oi!’ She broke off to glare menacingly at a gaggle of first years who giggled loudly as they walked past. ‘Five points from Gryffindor! Stop lingering and get back to Gryffindor Tower before curfew starts!’ The faces of the group paled, and they solemnly scurried toward the moving stairs.

‘Taking points from some firsties before curfew’s even started?’ Remus exclaimed with reproach, a look of scandalised amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes. He was thankful that the attention was taken away from him. ‘Who are you, and what’ve you done with Lily Evans?’

‘What?’ Lily smiled mischievously, her emerald eyes glowing in the dim torchlight. She began to move down the corridor again, and Remus hurried after her. ‘They were being bothersome. That’s worth some House points.’

Remus shook his head. ‘Take any more, and James and Sirius won’t be the only...’ His sentence died in his throat as he was forced to remember for the thousandth time what Sirius had done.

‘You miss him.’

Remus fiddled with his prefect’s badge again as they began to ascend the stairs. His foot snagged as he missed one of the vanishing steps, and he muttered ‘Oh, bugger,’ to avoid Lily’s questioning stare.

She helped him up, smiling softly. ‘I think he misses you, too. He’s told me so, actually. Probably about a thousand times.’ When she noticed Remus’s look of surprise, her smile widened. ‘We’ve been working together in Charms because his usual desk mysteriously vanished about three weeks ago. He never shuts up about you, y’know.’

Remus tried to control the frantic rhythm that Lily’s words had ignited in his chest. _Of course_ he missed Sirius. Remus and Sirius were symbiosis personified. They were a perfect syzygy that eclipsed the ebb and flow of the tides.

Being apart was tearing him to pieces.

Lily broke into Remus’s thoughts gently as they approached the Fat Lady’s portrait. ‘Listen, Remus—oh, _ignosco tibi_ , sorry. Listen, I don’t know what happened between you and Sirius, but whatever he did, I can guarantee you he’s sorry about it. He’s so, unbelievably sorry. You don’t have to feel obligated to forgive him, but… I wanted you to know.’

They crawled through the portrait hole in silence, and Remus bade Lily goodnight in the Common Room. She pushed a few strands that had come loose from her brilliant red plait behind her ears as she called over her shoulder, ‘I didn’t get to say this earlier, Remus, but you know what I think? You deserve the world. You shouldn’t settle for friends who won’t give it to you—but something tells me your friends would.’ With that, she disappeared up the stairs, leaving Remus alone in the Common Room with the dying embers of a fire in the hearth.

Climbing the stairs to the fifth-year Gryffindor boys’ dormitory, Remus rubbed at his eyes. He was exhausted, and he desperately wanted to wipe away Lily’s words from his head. _He misses you. He’s so, unbelievably sorry_. Remus wished he could assure himself that this meant that none of the small parts of Sirius that lurked beneath the surface thought he was a monster, but he wasn’t sure he could until Sirius showed it for himself.

To Remus’s surprise, Peter was standing outside the doorway of their dormitory, grinning widely. He blocked Remus from opening the door. ‘Evening, Moony.’

Remus blinked and squinted at him in the moonlight that was filtering in. ‘Evening, Pete... What’re you doing up? It’s past midnight.’

‘The lightning storm kept us up, of course. The first of the season.’ The way Peter said this, with that grin still stretching across his face and a trill of excitement, made Remus feel as though he were implying something significant, but he wasn’t sure what it could be. When Remus didn’t seem to cotton on, Peter continued, ‘How much d’you remember from Transfiguration our third year?’

Remus could feel frustration swelling in his chest. ‘I’m not really in the mood for memory games right now, Pete.’

James stuck his head out the doorway of the dormitory, his expression dazed. ‘Moony? I thought I heard your dulcet tones! Brilliant lightning storm we had tonight, eh? Think it may have been the first one in months! Say, do you remember much of Transfiguration third year?’

Feeling a bit like the butt of some cruel joke, Remus said, ‘What’re you two on about? Lightning storms and Transfiguration and—’ Any remaining words slipped from Remus’s head as his jaw dropped to the floor. He looked frantically from James to Peter. ‘ _No_. You _didn’t_.’

In response, Peter began to hunch into himself. Remus watched in awe as the place where Peter had just stood became occupied by a plump rat with gray fur and a long tail. The rat chittered excitedly before darting through the ajar door of the dormitory. Remus turned to James, heart racing. ‘You too, then?’

With a wink, James exhaled softly. His limbs elongated, and massive antlers began to sprout from the sides of his head. Within seconds, Remus found himself face-to-face with an exquisite stag, an awe-inspiring sight that was quickly marred by James’s inability to re-enter the dormitory—his antlers were too large to fit through the doorway, and they knocked clunkily against the wall.

Remus had known that the boys wanted to become Animagi—had watched them pour over book after book from the Restricted Section with far keener interest than they had ever shown in their studies— since they learned of his secret in their second year, but he had figured that they had dropped the issue. Every time they got close, something always seemed to go awry with the Mandrake leaf: Sirius, losing his to a lacklustre snog session with Agnes Sturminster; James, swallowing his after being knocked in the head by a Bludger during a particularly brutal Quidditch match against Ravenclaw; Peter, vomiting his into a bedpan when he had a touch of Black Cat Flu. In the name of fellowship, the other two would spit out their leaves as well, vowing to try again at the height of the next full moon. Because of his absences on those nights, Remus had lost track of their valiant efforts entirely.

James, in human form, stood before Remus once more. His voice was entreating as he asked, ‘So. What d’you think?’

Remus tried to swallow around the lump that was growing in his throat. The corners of his eyes were wet. ‘When did you manage to—’

‘Three months ago. We’ve just been waiting for the storm. Keeping it from you was a pain in the _ass_ , let me tell you, but we were so worried we might’ve mucked up the potion and didn’t want to get your hopes up. There were so many times when I thought Sirius was going to ruin it—’

Remus let out a pained sound that he tried to pass of as noncommittal at the mention of Sirius’s name. He clearly wasn’t present—for all Remus knew, Sirius had decided that a monstrosity like him wasn’t worth the effort. Remus didn’t blame him for that, not really.

James studied Remus’s face carefully before adding, ‘We do have one more surprise for the night. I think you’ll really like it.’ He ushered Remus into the dormitory and gave him a gentle shove toward the centre of the room.

Curled up on the floor beside the furnace, with thick black fur and alarmingly-human grey eyes, was an absolute behemoth of a dog. When Remus took another tentative step forward, the dog whimpered and padded toward him, nuzzling against his legs. Remus slowly put his hand out to scratch behind the dog’s ear, and the dog responded by thumping its tail furiously. Peter and James watched on, giving each other knowing smiles, as the dog’s lithe body lengthened into Sirius’s.

‘Erm, well—I think that—We’ll just—Pete, I think I remember seeing an announcement on the notice board for a new something-or-other. Very urgent. We should go take a look.’ Peter nodded his assent and scrambled off his bed. With that, James and Peter swept out of the room. The slamming of the door behind them made Sirius jump, and Remus looked away, chewing on his thumbnail. He waited for Sirius to say something, anything, to begin closing the rift that had grown between them.

After a millennium or two had passed, Sirius coughed and said, ‘Remus, I—erm—well, I wanted to—’ He ran his hand through his hair, displacing the curls, before gesturing toward his bed. ‘Care to sit?’

‘Yeah, all right.’ Remus’s heart was thunderous in his chest, and he thought that it was a wonder that Sirius didn’t hear it as they settled in side-by-side on his four-poster. Sirius, whose levels of discipline had always been severely lacking, had managed to perform the complex spellwork necessary to become an Animagus without the solidarity of James and Peter to propel him forward. The thought awoke so many of the emotions he had managed to suppress over the past weeks, and he struggled against their stirrings.

‘Look, Remus—okay. I wanted to apologise for—y’know. Eurgh!’ Sirius rubbed his eyes violently, his voice catching. ‘Why is this so difficult?’

Remus tried to smile. After days of wishing for it more than anything, he suddenly didn’t want to know how much Sirius cared. ‘It’s all right, Sirius. All’s forgiven.’

Sirius shook his head vehemently. ‘ _No_.’

‘What d’you mean, no? You made a mistake. You’ve more than made up for it.’

‘I mean, I’m not going to let you do your whole _Moony_ thing where you pretend that you’re all right when you clearly aren’t. You think you aren’t worth loving. You think you don’t deserve to be here after what happened.’ Sirius coughed again, the motion wracking his body. ‘ _Damn_ it _,_ Moony, none of this is your fault! I have replayed that night over and over again, have relived it more times than I care to mention in my damn Pensieve, and I wish that I could go back and undo what I did because I never, ever meant to hurt you, and I am so sorry. It was so stupid, and—’

‘Sirius—’ Remus attempted to cut in, but a dam seemed to have come uncorked in Sirius’s chest. He plowed on.

‘And I know you’ve been made to feel like a monster your entire life, Moony, I _know_ , and I hate that what I did may have deepened that feeling—’

Remus felt lighter than he had in a long time as he reached out and gave Sirius’s knee a tight squeeze. Sirius froze, his eyes on Remus’s hand.

‘ _Hey_.’ Remus stared at Sirius hard, until Sirius finally peeked into his eyes. ‘I missed you, you complete and utter arsehole.’

Sirius nodded his agreement vigorously, whispering another apology and saying, ‘I really messed up, Remus. I hope Padfoot is a good enough way of me showing it.’

Remus raised an eyebrow. ‘Padfoot?’

For the first time in weeks, Sirius’s face split into a grin. ‘Yeah. Y’know. Dogs have padded feet. Padfoot.’

Remus snorted and threw his arms around Sirius. ‘Only you would name your Animagus self, you wanker.’ And then, in a far softer voice, he said, ‘Thank you. For this.’

Sirius settled into the embrace, his voice muffled by Remus’s robes. ‘Figured it was only fair, what with us calling you “Moony” and everything.’

Sirius and Remus spent the rest of the night like this, talking as though no bad blood had been exchanged and, for some reason or another, enfolding themselves within each other’s arms. When James and Peter returned to the dormitories that night, Sirius—in Padfoot form, naturally—had snuggled himself up at the foot of Remus’s bed, the picture of a loyal pet.

In no time, Padfoot and the wolf became friends, much like how Sirius and Remus were friends. Padfoot matched the wolf in size and spirit, and Sirius was always the last to leave the Shack before Madam Pomfrey arrived to whisk Remus back to the castle, licking Remus’s wounds gently and curling into him as he convulsed against the rising sun. And later, when Sirius thought Remus was asleep, he would climb into Remus’s cot in the Hospital Wing and press against him, brushing his tawny hair out of his eyes and whispering, over and over again, ‘I don’t think you’re a monster.’

It took weeks, months even, for Remus to believe that to be true, but it was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all! happy belated september 1st! wish i was on the hogwarts express rn, but that's okay--writing about it is almost as great? this chapter is easily the longest i've written so far, which i think has somewhat become a trend in this story lol. i think that sirius's betrayal of remus's trust is so heartbreaking, especially because it is so clear that remus hates being a werewolf and the stigma that is associated with it, so i was really excited to explore their dynamic in this chapter!
> 
> as always, please enjoy! :)


	13. After - Part 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sirius uncrossed his arms and closed the space between them on the sofa. ‘It’s probably also exhausting trying to be everything to everybody: to comfort Molly when she’s scared; to help Tonks set something right when she’s made a real cock-up of it; to help Dumbledore with whatever he needs.’ Sirius’s eyes were soft as he added, ‘To gather me up in your arms and put me right every time I fall apart.’
> 
> Remus held his breath. ‘What are you saying, Sirius?’
> 
> ‘Move in with me. Today. Tomorrow. Next week. I don’t care when.’ The words tumbled out of Sirius’s mouth, as though he had been holding them there for too long. ‘Stay with me.’
> 
> -or-
> 
> In which Sirius Black proposes new living arrangements for Remus Lupin.

‘I still can’t believe that you lot did that for me. You spent three miserable years becoming Animagi for _me_ , purely because you didn’t want me to be alone during my transformations.’ Remus gave a watery cough; his eyes still filled with tears every time he thought back to the morning after his first night with the Marauders in Animagus form. It was the most normal—the most whole—he had ever felt after the full moon. ‘It was the best gift I could have ever received.’

Sirius had stopped his pacing during Remus’s reminiscing, but he began again at this conclusion. His face was ashen. ‘It took you a long time to get to the part where I was a good person. I think that’s as good an indication as any to show otherwise.’

Remus bit back a smile. ‘Sirius, _you_ took a long time to get to the part where you were a good person. I’m not going to deny that. Though, in all fairness, it’s not as though your family set a great example of morality for you.’ When he noticed Sirius’s pained expression, he added, ‘But that isn’t the point. The point is that you always do right in the end. Whatever it is you decide to give Harry for Christmas, I’m sure he’ll love it.’

Sirius didn’t seem convinced. He shook his head and said, ‘The Animagus bit was all James’s idea. That “gift” really wasn’t mine to give; I just went along with it because he wanted to do it.’

‘I think we both know that isn’t true.’ Remus rose from his seat at the table and manoeuvred around it, so he was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Sirius. He put his hand on Sirius’s shoulder and gave it a tender squeeze. ‘When we were at Hogwarts, you liked to portray yourself as this aloof, hardened, jaded aristocrat, but I don’t think you were. I think you were just scared. Of making friends. Of getting too close to people. Of feeling all the things that your parents forced you to believe made a person weak, or spineless, or inadequate.’

Sirius, who had been pointedly avoiding Remus’s gaze, looked up at him then. To Remus’s surprise, there were tears pooling in his sharp grey eyes. With each of Remus’s gentle touches, the hardened exterior that had formed around Sirius while he was in Azkaban was slowly being chipped away, showing the scared schoolboy that lurked beneath the surface. ‘What if I’m not that person anymore?’

‘Of course you are. You managed to spend twelve years in Azkaban without losing yourself to the dementors. I think that’s a testament to how strong your character is.’

Sirius’s gaze shifted above Remus’s head as he breathed out, ‘The dementors aren’t the only way you can lose your soul.’

Somehow, as he thought about that brisk November morning of watery sunlight, letters from Dumbledore, and toast gone cold—the morning he had learned that he had lost everything—, Remus understood. He had lost his soul then, too. It had fallen out of him quickly and silently, grabbing its overcoat from the rack by the door and slipping into the night with an upturned collar.

Being with Sirius made Remus feel as though it was finally returning.

‘This isn’t about Harry’s gift, is it?’ Remus asked softly. Sirius made a frantic choking sound in response.

Remus pulled Sirius into an embrace, clasping at the nape of his neck with his right hand while encircling his left arm around his back. Sirius softened into his embrace, resting his head on Remus’s chest. The act felt so natural that it evoked in Remus a sense of crippling nostalgia. He had spent the past months fighting off the memories of him and Sirius before, but now he welcomed them—a soul, reunited with the body. They flitted in and out of his mind as Sirius exhaled deeply into the crook of his neck.

Sirius, giving him a playful shove when he found out he was prefect and saying, ‘Obviously. Who else would it be?’ Sirius, twirling Lily at her and James’s wedding while he and James pitifully attempted to waltz and make the other two jealous. Sirius, poking his tongue out of his mouth as he deliberated what the next step of a prank should be. Sirius, twisting him round by the arm and pressing their lips together for the first time in the Come and Go Room.

The room spun, and Remus screwed his eyes shut against it.

‘You haven’t lost yourself.’ He whispered fiercely into Sirius’s ear. ‘I know that you’ve spent all this time convincing yourself that you aren’t a good person. But I’m here to help you remember that you are.’

Sirius gasped. His breath was hot on Remus cheek as he murmured, ‘Stay here tonight? I need you.’

Remus thought back to Halloween night, when he had climbed into Sirius’s bed and laid with his back to Sirius’s drunken figure. Sirius’s breathing had evened out in minutes, but Remus had been unable to fall asleep, mind racing at the _closeness_ , at the unbelievable intimacy and familiarity of it all. When morning began to crack, he knew that he needed to escape—to hide how impossible it was for him to focus when Sirius was near.

He no longer felt as though he needed to hide.

‘I need you, too.’

________________

Despite Arthur’s grave injury, Christmas seemed to do wonders for Sirius’s mood. After Harry and Weasleys had arrived, he practically skipped about Grimmauld Place, decorating and singing Christmas carols at the top of his voice, clearly delighted to be entertaining such a large group for the holidays. After more deliberation, he had agreed with Remus’s proposal of giving Harry a Christmas present together. It was more _economical_ that way, or so Remus tried to convince himself: as a non-fugitive of the law, Remus could do the shopping, and Sirius could pay with his handsome inheritance. It made sense for purely platonic reasons. They decided to gift Harry _Practical Defensive Magic and Its Use Against the Dark Arts_ ; the idea had come from Remus’s time teaching Defence at Hogwarts, as it had been the book which he had used with his own fifth-year students that year.

Sadly, Sirius’s high spirits were fickle; they began to dissipate as Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys prepared to return to Hogwarts, and they were banished all togehter when Snape came to call on Harry and begrudgingly offer him Occlumency lessons. Sirius relayed the interaction to Remus with exaggerated disgust when Remus returned from his task of accompanying the kids to Hogwarts on the Knight Bus. Remus listened sympathetically, sipping a cup of Earl Grey and lounging, cross-legged, on the sofa in the parlour. The tea was, to Remus’s surprise, quite good, and he wondered at what Sirius had done to so vastly improve his preparation.

‘He’s just like he was in school, Remus,’ Sirius was saying, his eyes darkening. He sat on the other end of the sofa, feet planted firmly on the ground. ‘Rude. Antagonistic. Spiteful.’

Against his better judgment, Remus sighed and said, ‘He isn’t so bad. When I was at Hogwarts, he prepared the Wolfsbane Potion for me perfectly. Every month. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for him to swallow his pride and do so, especially considering our… history.’ He had also let Remus’s secret slip, but Remus forced himself to look past that with the reminder that Dumbledore trusted Snape. That would have to be enough for him.

Sirius placed his cup of tea on the table to his left and crossed his arms sullenly. This was clearly not the response he was hoping to garner. ‘He didn’t need to bring James into it.’

‘He didn’t. You’re right. But he holds a grudge, Sirius. You can’t exactly say that James was a model of proper behaviour when it came to Snape. That is bound to colour the way he remembers him.’ Remus placed a comforting hand on Sirius’s bicep, a gesture which made Sirius smile until he remembered that he was supposed to be sulking. ‘You hold a grudge, too.’

‘Do not,’ Sirius grumbled, his face scrunching peevishly.

Remus rolled his eyes, swatting at Sirius’s shoulder. ‘Yes, you do. It’s been years. You need to move on.’

‘Have you?’

Remus considered this. He had never resented Snape the way that Sirius and James had, choosing to go along with their antics simply because it was easier than being the voice of reason. Even when Snape had uncovered his secret in their fifth year, Remus was more afraid of him—of the power that knowledge gave him—than he was resentful. He shrugged. ‘I have. I had to come to terms with a lot of our Hogwarts days, what with you lot being gone. Had some growing up to do.’ Growing up that, Remus secretly thought, Sirius had not yet been able to do himself—a development that was stunted by his time in Azkaban.

Sirius was quiet for several moments before cutting into Remus’s thoughts. ‘Where are you living?’

Remus cast his eyes downward and fiddled with the top button of his cardigan. He was painfully aware of the deterioration of his appearance; he knew he looked far older than someone of his age ought to look, that his fraying jumpers and shabby trousers and swollen eyes with bags the colour of charcoal were a dead give-away of his living situation and the toll that his condition was taking on him. ‘We aren’t talking about me right now.’

‘I need a change of subject.’

Remus rubbed at his eyes, not willing to admit that he had not lived anywhere consistently enough to call it home—other than his year at Hogwarts, of course—since their shared flat. ‘Around.’

Sirius frowned at this, though Remus knew that he had suspected as much. ‘Around?’

‘Yeah. Around. I do all right for myself.’

‘That doesn’t sound very convincing.’

Before he could stop himself, Remus snapped, ‘Well, not all of us have our parents’ homes and an inheritance to live off of, Sirius.’ His eyes widened as he realised what he had said. ‘Fuck, I didn’t mean that.’

Sirius winced at his words. Though he was usually loud and confrontational when his inability to contribute to the war in any significant way was brought up, he simply whispered, ‘You sound just like Snivellus. Said about the same thing last week.’

‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’ Remus softened his voice, exhaling slowly. ‘It’s just… I haven’t been able to keep a job for more than a couple months at a time since resigning from Hogwarts. Between the Werewolf Registry and the increasing anti-Dark creature sentiments in the Ministry, I’ve been blacklisted from just about every Wizarding job in the country. Even Muggle shops suspect that something is out of the ordinary when I have to take three days off every month and show up again covered in bruises and scars. I got sacked from my last job at a bookshop because the owner thought I was out starting scrums at the pub every other weekend. It’s exhausting, being poor.’

Sirius uncrossed his arms and closed the space between them on the sofa. ‘It’s probably also exhausting trying to be everything to everybody: to comfort Molly when she’s scared; to help Tonks set something right when she’s made a real cock-up of it; to help Dumbledore with whatever he needs.’ Sirius’s eyes were soft as he added, ‘To gather me up in your arms and put me right every time I fall apart.’

Remus held his breath. ‘What are you saying, Sirius?’

‘Move in with me. Today. Tomorrow. Next week. I don’t care when.’ The words tumbled out of Sirius’s mouth, as though he had been holding them there for too long. ‘Stay with me.’

Remus’s heart was pounding in his chest, trying to break free. This is what he had been yearning for, but he felt as though he needed to say no. ‘I couldn’t possibly—’

‘ _Remus_.’ Sirius said his name exasperatedly, drawing out the syllables. It reminded Remus of when they had been together, which sent another flurry of butterflies through his stomach. ‘Don’t do this to yourself. I’ve played the tortured loner bit. It isn’t particularly pleasant, and it isn’t your style. And I _miss_ you when you aren’t here.’

Remus did too, more than anything, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to admit it. Instead, he said, ‘Are you sure you’d like me as a housemate? Are you sure you’d like a _werewolf_ as a housemate?’

Sirius snorted, nudging Remus’s shoulder with his own. ‘You say that like I’ve never lived with a werewolf before. That’s old hat.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, all! this chapter was a bit on the shorter side because i've been busy and didn't really have too much to develop here, etc. etc. etc. i definitely struggle with these chapters more than the chapters that focus on the past because the "present" chapters are more focused on emotions and less on things happening lol.
> 
> anywho, enjoy!


	14. Before - Part 7 - 2nd Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘What if he doesn’t want us to know?’ Peter whispered, sandwiched between James and Sirius beneath the cloak. ‘What if he goes… if he goes feral, or something, when we tell him that we know.’
> 
> Sirius could practically hear James roll his eyes, and he felt Peter squirm against his back, presumably because James had poked him in the back of the neck. ‘‘Course he doesn’t want us to know, Pete. Would you tell us if you were a werewolf? Bet he’s really embarrassed about it. I would be. Not that it’s anything to be embarrassed about,’ James added hurriedly, clearly not wanting to sound prejudiced.
> 
> Prejudice is a funny thing. When seeds are sown at an early age, it's difficult to tell whether they will become flowers or weeds until it's too late to stop them from blooming. Therefore, when Peter had told James and Sirius of his suspicion, Sirius felt as though a stone were settling in his stomach, and he sank with it. His parents reviled Dark creatures. In his family, they were pawns to be used; they were expendable; they were monsters. Most of all, they were not to be trusted.
> 
> -or-
> 
> In which Sirius Black, James Potter, and Peter Pettigrew work out Remus Lupin's secret, but they refuse to abandon him.

By nature, Sirius was not particularly observant, a deficit which he chalked up to his own majesty—he didn’t see much reason for perceiving details about others when he was already so content with himself. In this vein, Sirius floated through his first year at Hogwarts quite buoyantly, pointedly refusing to care much about the happenings in the other Gryffindor boys’ lives unless they were told to him directly. This character attribute frustrated James to no end, though he had mostly accepted it as one of his best friend’s few flaws until, on a sunny afternoon in late September, Sirius failed to notice that James had been the only second-year to make the Gryffindor Quidditch team. After the results of Quidditch tryouts had been posted on the notice board, James strutted about the Common Room and sent piercing looks in Sirius’s direction, clearly searching for congratulations.

After ten minutes of this charade, Sirius finally tore his eyes way from his game of wizard’s chess with Peter and scowled at James. ‘What are you walking around like that for? You look like an idiot.’

This grave error on Sirius’s part resulted in James angrily chasing him around the Gryffindor Common Room and up the stairs into the second-year boys’ dormitory, shouting hexes that would have sounded far more threatening if puberty had not been wreaking havoc on his voice. The chase ended when Remus—who had been quietly reading a Muggle mystery novel in bed when the two burst in—disarmed each of them and refused to return their wands until they properly reconciled.

As the year progressed, Sirius—feeling guilty about missing what was apparently an important milestone in James’s life—decided to put more effort into ‘caring’ about his friends, whatever that meant. This endeavour led him to the library on a bleary Sunday morning in February, helping Remus to revise for Defence and trying to stave off boredom. The two of them sat across from each other at a table near the Dangerous Creatures section. Remus had been devoutly scratching away at his essay on banshees for the better part of three hours, occasionally standing to stretch and peruse the shelves nearby for additional resources.

Wan sunlight filtered through the snow that was piling beyond the window, but it did little to stop the frigid draft that whispered through the library and made Sirius wish he were still curled up in bed. Without anything else to do, Sirius fiddled with a Dancy Doxy that he had nicked from Marlene’s cat Ferguson and watched Remus chew on the nib of his quill in thought. James was, without surprise, in detention with Flitwick, and Peter was at an Herbology Club meeting; the absence of their typical clamour made Sirius acutely aware of how pale Remus was—of how faded he seemed to get around the same time every month.

‘You all right, mate? You look really tired.’ Sirius poked at Remus’s shoulder. In the soft glow of winter, Remus looked washed-out, almost monochromatic. His tawny hair hung limply against his forehead, and his usually-bright green eyes were dull. The sight made something stir uncomfortably in the pit of Sirius’s stomach.

‘Hm? Oh, yeah,’ said Remus without looking up from the chapter on banshees in _The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection_. The dark circles under his eyes seemed more pronounced as he blinked at the page a few times to refocus. ‘My mum’s still sick. Just worried and all. I think I may need to go visit her again tonight.’

Sirius had never inquired into the state of Remus’s mum and her health because he had, admittedly, not thought to. _I wouldn’t care if my mother was sick_ , he thought to himself impassively, shamefaced when he realised that he would almost prefer it if it meant she stopped bothering him about everything he did. _But maybe Remus wants to talk about it._ Sirius turned the Dancing Doxy over in his hands thoughtfully. He wasn’t sure if having this conversation was something that good friends were supposed do. ‘What kind of sick is she?’

‘What?’ Remus said absentmindedly, pausing in the sentence he was writing on banshees’ concentrated presence in Ireland to scratch his nose.

‘Your mum. What kind of sick is she?’

‘Oh, right. It’s…’ Remus hesitated, like he was searching for the words to say next. ‘It’s cancer. In the—erm—in the stomach.’

Sirius didn’t know what cancer was, but he thought the way Remus delivered the words made it sound very severe. ‘Oh. That sounds bad.’

Remus finally looked up from his essay to smile at Sirius weakly. The motion pulled his skin taut, making his face look skeletal. ‘She’ll be all right, I think. My dad takes good care of her. I just like to go home every month to check on her. Dumbledore’s okay with it,’ he added quickly, as though he worried that Sirius would question his monthly visits. ‘Always says family is the most important thing and to value it while we still have it. Some wise rubbish like that.’

Sirius nodded as if he understood, though he wondered at what it must be like for someone to love their family so much that they would willingly leave Hogwarts once a month to visit. He was quiet for some time, unsure of what to say; the Dancing Doxy quivered on the table, filling the silence.

Sirius settled for a quiet, ‘I’m sorry. About your mum.’

‘S’okay. She’ll be all right in the end, I think.’ Remus rubbed his eyes and yawned, stretching his arms out above his head. He rolled his scroll up and slipped it into his bag, along with his textbook. ‘I’m knackered, though. I think I may need to have a kip before I leave for home.’

Sirius trailed after Remus as he left the library, and they climbed the stairs toward Gryffindor Tower in silence. As their footsteps echoed on the steps, Sirius found his mind stuck on how exhausting it must be to have a family you were afraid of losing. He supposed he loved Regulus in the way an older brother was meant to love his younger brother, but ever since Reg had started at Hogwarts this year and been sorted into Slytherin, their relationship had grown increasingly crystalline—serrated and sharp.

Sirius knew that it was only a matter of time before he lost Regulus, too, and he would be alone.

The thought made him ache for Remus in a way he didn’t quite understand, and—as he watched Remus drop his bag on the floor and run a hand over his gaunt face before tugging closed the hangings around his bed—he decided that he wanted to do something about it.

After all, it seemed like something that good friends were supposed to do.

Later that night, the full moon shone bright through the windows of the dormitory, reflecting off the settled snow and lending some light to the second-year Gryffindor boys’ newly-appointed Sunday ritual, which James had solemnly dubbed their ‘Time of Conference’ some weeks earlier. During each meeting, the four of them—or, tonight, the three of them—would gather and sit cross-legged on James’s bed, swapping sweets, playing games, and bemoaning their troubles with professors and that ever-present scourge of the adolescent boy: _girls_. After a lull in the conversation following James’s recount of an absolutely horrifying encounter he had had with Lily Evans and Snivellus Snape—an encounter in which Lily had called James an epithet so foul that it made _Sirius_ gasp—, Sirius proposed that the group consider doing something to cheer Remus up when he returned from his short trip to Skenfrith.

‘He’s seemed so down lately,’ James said, nodding his assent and chewing on a Liquorice Wand. ‘His mum’s still not doing well. He was telling me last week that she has typhoid. I dunno what it does exactly, but I think it’s some very serious Muggle sickness.’

At the word ‘typhoid,’ something akin to a record skip sent Sirius’s mind stuttering. He blinked at James. ‘Wait. Remus’s mum has what?’

‘Typhoid. Or maybe it was typhus? I don’t really remember. Something like that. Bet I’ll know what it is once I can take Muggle Studies next year,’ James said confidently as he finished off his Liquorice Wand and reached into the packaging for another. He offered it to Sirius.

Sirius shook his head and uncrossed his legs to pace beside James’s bed instead. He thought back to his conversation with Remus earlier that morning, as the weak sunlight lit Remus’s face from below and cast deep shadows beneath his eyes. ‘No, that can’t be it. He told _me_ it was cancer today. I don’t know what that is either, but I don’t think it’s the same thing as typhus.’

Peter—who usually stayed quiet during the Time of Conference in favour of ogling reverently at Sirius’s and James’s stories—piped in with, ‘He told _me_ it was heart disease last month.’

James scratched at his nose in thought, his face bewildered. ‘But that doesn’t make sense. Why would he lie to us? We’re his best mates!’

Sirius thought again to Remus’s tired, sad eyes and wondered what secret could be so terrible that Remus felt he needed to hide it from them. He tilted his head from James to Peter, hands meditatively steepled before his chin. ‘Maybe we ought to try and figure it out.’

________________

‘Does this make us bad friends? Snooping around like this?’ James whispered into Peter’s shoulder.

‘Absolutely not,’ Sirius replied confidently, inching the group forward. ‘We’re doing it for Remus.’

James, Peter, and Sirius stood outside the looming doors of the Hospital Wing, safely nestled under the cover of James’s invisibility cloak. The last rays of evening sunlight shone through the tall windows of the corridor, illuminating the motes of dust the drifted through the air. Outside, the sunset—a dazzling show of oranges and deep purples—seemed to be tugging the equally-brilliant moon and stars into place.

After Remus had returned from his supposed ‘trip home’ looking considerably worse for wear, James, Peter, and Sirius had taken to tailing Remus wherever he went, determined to work out the secret he was clearly very keen on keeping from them. The only place they ever seemed to lose him was the washroom; Remus, who seemed to notice their increased interest in his whereabouts—he was, as it turned out, far more observant of his friends than Sirius was, and it came to light rather quickly that Peter was not particularly sneaky—, still deliberately refused to allow the boys to see him starkers, even though he had seen all of _them_ sans clothing.

Despite this caution on Remus’s part, Sirius noticed shortly after his return from home that Remus’s arms were covered in fresh scars that glowed pink against his pale skin. He’d had the chance when Remus absentmindedly rolled up a sleeve to ink a reminder onto the inside of his forearm with his quill during History of Magic. When Sirius asked him about it, Remus quickly yanked the sleeve of his robes down and coughed out some excuse about his family’s pet rabbit going on a rampage. Sirius found this suspicious; he had never heard of the Lupins owning a pet rabbit before. He reported this finding to James, who copied it down onto a scrap piece of parchment.

It was April now, the night of the full moon, and their snooping over the past two months had proven fruitful. What had started as some speculations on that scrap piece of parchment quickly transformed into a record of all of Remus’s comings and goings in March—comings and goings which had culminated in him visiting the Hospital Wing the night of the full moon and being escorted by Madam Pomfrey to what looked like a tunnel at the mouth of the Whomping Willow.

Now, the boys gathered under the invisibility cloak in the shadows of the hallway to confirm what they believed to be the true reason for Remus’s disappearances: he was a werewolf.

It had been Peter, surprisingly enough, who had been the first to cotton on. Apparently, his mother—a first-class worrywart—was deathly afraid of the ‘ever-present threat of a werewolf invasion,’ and she had taught him the signs that a wizard should look for to identify the danger. Remus, as it seemed, checked all the boxes, especially once they realised that his disappearance last month had coincided with the full moon.

‘What if he doesn’t want us to know?’ Peter whispered, sandwiched between James and Sirius beneath the cloak. ‘What if he goes… if he goes feral, or something, when we tell him that we know.’

Sirius could practically hear James roll his eyes, and he felt Peter squirm against his back, presumably because James had poked him in the back of the neck. ‘‘Course he doesn’t want us to know, Pete. Would you tell us if _you_ were a werewolf? Bet he’s really embarrassed about it. I would be. _Not that it’s anything to be embarrassed about_ ,’ James added hurriedly, clearly not wanting to sound prejudiced.

Prejudice is a funny thing. When seeds are sown at an early age, it's difficult to tell whether they will become flowers or weeds until it's too late to stop them from blooming. Therefore, when Peter had told James and Sirius of his suspicion, Sirius felt as though a stone were settling in his stomach, and he sank with it. His parents reviled Dark creatures. In his family, they were pawns to be used; they were expendable; they were _monsters_. Most of all, they were not to be trusted.

Sirius had never necessarily subscribed to these views—a small part of him had always thought that werewolves sounded _cool_ —, but now, with the prospect of one of his best mates being a beast that his family so vehemently abhorred, he felt twitchy about it, as if he were breaking some innate rule that was etched into the hard edges of his bones. Those weeds always seemed to be crowding his mind, even if he pushed back against them, watered by his parents and the iron grip they wielded over him. His mother would not be pleased if what they believed about Remus was true and word got out. Sirius knew that he would be removed from Hogwarts, or his parents would try to force him to somehow switch into Slytherin. He didn’t know which he would hate more, and he was loathe to find out.

Therefore, rather selfishly, Sirius was a bit worried about their hunch being confirmed; what if Remus really was a werewolf, and it ruined the family Sirius had carefully created to fill the holes that his own family had left?

The doors to the Hospital Wing swung open, and Sirius, James, and Peter crowded against the wall to avoid Madam Pomfrey’s wide gait. Madam Pomfrey bustled quickly through the corridor, and Remus lagged after her resignedly, his small hands shaking. He looked impossibly small in his robes, and he kept rubbing at his eyes with his palms.

‘Let’s go after them, then?’ James said with a tone of uncertainty after Madam Pomfrey and Remus had exited the castle, nudging the group forward. Sirius nodded.

‘Yeah. Let’s go.’

They followed the path which Madam Pomfrey and Remus had paved, moving slowly to ensure that all three remained under the cover of the cloak. Sirius gritted his teeth every time Peter tread on the backs of his trainers, and James was clearly frustrated by the pace they had set—he kept bumping into Peter, which, of course, sent Peter stumbling into Sirius _again_. By the time they had crept through the corridors of Hogwarts and descended the jagged stone steps to the lower level of the grounds, Madam Pomfrey and Remus were already at the gnarled roots of the Whomping Willow, pushing at a knot and entering into a small passageway.

'We aren't going to follow them, right?' Peter asked as they came to rest on the fringes of the Forbidden Forest to watch for Madam Pomfrey's return. Apprehension coloured his voice.

'Don't be an idiot. Of course not,' Sirius said, leaning against a towering pinewood. 'We just have to wait until we start hearing... y'know... werewolf sounds from the tree, or something.'

These 'werewolf sounds' came some time after Madam Pomfrey climbed out from the passage beneath the willow and straightened her hat and robes resolutely, though they were far more diluted than Sirius had anticipated. Something caught in his chest as he listened to the mournful howling that seemed to emanate from the very roots of the tree, and Sirius ached to know that that was his friend out there, clearly hurting. Sirius felt his fear of his mother drain away as he listened to Remus tear himself apart.

Weeds could be cleared away, and good friends always did what they could for their friends, after all.

________________

When Remus returned to the boys’ dormitory two mornings after the full moon, Sirius, James, and Peter were ready for him, sitting together on James's bed. James had voiced his concerns that waiting in this fashion might seem like an ambush, but Sirius waved those worries away, saying, ‘We’re just doing this to show him we care about him! It’ll be okay!’

Remus looked harried as he pushed open the door to the dormitory, his hair sticking in different directions and his skin a pallid yellow. Even his tie, usually knotted with a gentle precision, was askew. Peter stuttered out a greeting, eyes wide in panic and uncertainty as he looked from James to Sirius. James and Sirius hurried to say their hellos as well, glaring back at Peter.

Remus didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. He rushed over to the foot of his bed and began to shove his textbooks into his bag haphazardly. ‘Morning, lads. I'm glad I caught you before Herbology—I tried doing the homework on Mandrakes at home, but I couldn't remember much and I forgot to grab _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ when I left. Think I could copy it from one of you?'

Peter looked catatonic at the prospect of sharing his homework with a werewolf and James seemed focused on the looming confrontation, so Sirius shoved off James's bed to grab his Herbology homework from his bag. He shoved the parchment toward Remus, allowing their knuckles to brush and sending a meaningful look towards Peter, as if to say: _See? Not dangerous at all_.

Remus smiled up at him from his place on the floor. 'Ta, mate. Feel free to copy my next Defence essay. I know yours get a bit scattered.' He went back to shoving an assortment of items into his bag before adding, 'Did I miss anything important while I was gone?’

Sirius could have laughed at Remus’s attempt at nonchalance. He clapped Remus on the shoulder and relayed the events of the last few days. ‘Just Binns being an absolute bore and McGonagall threatening to take points because Pete couldn’t manage turning a porcupine into a pin cushion. Nothing out of the ordinary.’

Remus nodded, distractedly muttering, ‘Right, right…’ as Peter squeaked, 'Hey!' at Sirius's jab and scowled. Sirius narrowed his eyes at Peter; it was true, after all, and Peter's skittish behaviour was not going to be doing them any favours.

James, sensing that it was time to act, took the lead on the conversation. ‘So, Remus… how’s your mum?’

‘Surviving,’ Remus said with a shrug, still rifling through his trunk for something. 'The doctors—that's what Muggles call Healers—said she might get better this summer.'

'Cancer's bad, yeah?' James prodded further, sweeping his hair from his eyes.

Remus finally managed to extract what he had been looking for: a leather-bound journal. He slipped it into his bag with his textbooks. 'Yeah, it's not good. No real cure, I think. I'm not sure how long she'll have it—probably until we finish at Hogwarts.'

James pivoted. ‘We had a lovely full moon while you were away. Did you see it?’

Remus stood from the floor and brushed off his trousers absentmindedly. 'Didn't realise. I must've missed it. I spent most of my time inside.' Remus turned to smile cheerily at the three of them. 'Off to breakfast, then? I'm starving.'

‘We know you’re a werewolf!’ Sirius blurted, giving up on James's tactful approach of the subject and eager to show Remus that he did not hold the prejudiced views that his parents had tried to force onto him.

The smile on Remus’s face froze. While his lips kept their warm shape, his eyes grew icy. ‘Pardon?’

Sirius realised that this may not be the best way to approach the subject, but—having already let the words spill out of his mouth once—he repeated himself slowly. ‘We know you’re a werewolf, Remus.’ James and Peter nodded along.

Remus jolted as though an electric current had spasmed through his veins, and then he went very still. His eyes were wild and wide as he began to creep backwards and away from the three, moving toward the door of the dormitory. His bag still hung open, the books threatening to tumble out. ‘How long have you known?’

‘Since the full moon last month. But we tracked it this month too because we wanted to be sure.’

Remus's back was against the door of the dormitory now. His eyes flitted from Sirius's to James's to Peter's faces, the little colour remaining in his face draining away. 'Who have you told?'

Sirius's brow furrowed. 'What d'you mean, who have we told?'

Remus didn't seem to hear him as he pressed his palms into his eyes. 'How long do I have?'

James dismounted his bed and took a few cautious steps toward Remus, which caused Remus to flinch violently. His voice was gentle as he said, 'What are you talking about?'

'How long do I have before your parents go storming into Dumbledore's office, demanding that I be expelled?'

Sirius felt his chest tighten. If he had told his parents, this is exactly what would have happened. Walburga Black had never liked Dumbledore—Sirius had heard her refer to him as a 'soft-minded old coot' on more occasions than he could count—and this would just cement any feelings of disdain which she held for him. She would throw around the words 'child endangerment' and 'dangerous half-breed' and 'dishonour' and otherwise cause a scene until Dumbledore was forced to bend to her will, actions which Sirius found very ironic considering his mother's utter lack of interest in his life and well-being. James's parents, despite how wonderful he always made them out to sound, would probably react very similarly, worried about the safety of their darling only child. And _Peter's mother_... Sirius didn't want to imagine how she would respond, either.

They all knew this, and it made responding to Remus's question impossible.

After waiting a beat, Remus choked out a manic laugh. It reverberated in the silence of the room. 'Right. I'll pack my bags, then.'

The bitterness in Remus's usually-soft voice was enough to shock Sirius into action. Finding his words, Sirius said, ' _Wait!_ We didn't tell anyone anything! Why would you need to pack your bags?'

‘But…’ Remus drew it out as he processed Sirius's words, his eyes darting between Peter, James, and Sirius, ‘Don’t you not want to live with me anymore?’

Sirius began to laugh, but the sound died in his throat when he noticed that genuine fear that glinted in Remus’s eyes. ‘You’re joking, right? Why wouldn’t we want to live with you?’

‘Because I’m a monster!’ Remus made a choking sound, and he leaned against the wall of the dormitory for support as he coughed violently into his shoulder.

It was James’s turn to laugh incredulously. He closed the space between them to pull Remus into a bone-crushing hug and ruffle his hair. Remus stiffened before relaxing into the embrace. ‘ _Remus Lupin_ , a monster? You read books _for fun_. You like to bake the _Muggle way_ with your mum during the summer, with an apron and everything. You revise for every exam we have. I don’t know any monsters who do that stuff. Besides, you're one of our best mates! Being a werewolf doesn't change that!’

Remus's voice was muted as he whispered into James's robes, 'You mean you're okay with it? Y'know... with me being what I am?' He met Sirius's eyes over James's shoulder. 'Your parents, Sirius...'

'My parents can sod off,' Sirius said with more confidence than he thought possible, and he moved to wrap his arms around Remus and James. He could feel the weeds withering away as he called over to Peter, 'Get in here, Pete!'

Peter seemed nervous, but he joined the hug after a moment of hesitation. The four of them stood like this for just a moment, entangled in each others' arms, before realising that they were acting like a bunch of _girls_ and falling away from each other, giggling. Sirius glanced at Remus; a smile was stretching at his cheeks, and it added some needed colour to his face.

Sirius was afraid of losing this moment—afraid of forgetting what it felt like to drop such a colossal weight from his chest. It was good, he realised, to care about something beyond the self-preservation that his parents had always pushed him toward, and—as Remus blushed and admitted that his mother was not, in fact, sick—he vowed to never forget it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, all! i've been crazy busy because teaching is hard lmao. i really enjoyed writing the dialogue for this chapter because i teach middle school, so i *know* what twelve-year-olds sound like--it's basically the only age demographic i regularly interact with at the moment. i didn't mean for this chapter to be this long, but... eh. oops.
> 
> anywho, enjoy!


	15. After - Part 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sirius launched himself off the sofa after Remus, catching him by the wrist and whirling him round to look into his eyes. He tried to keep the panic down as he whispered, ‘Remus. Please. I don’t want you to move in because I think you need it. I want you to move in because I know I do.’
> 
> Sirius watched the colours drain from Remus’s cheeks and felt the pit in his stomach deepen. However, the corners of Remus’s lips quirked upward as he said, ‘My pick of the bedrooms, you said? How about yours?’
> 
> -or-
> 
> In which Remus Lupin becomes a permanent resident of Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

‘I was so eager to show you that I wasn’t like the rest of my family, with all their Pureblood mania and their twisted views, that I didn’t even realise how afraid you might have been. How you might have thought that I was like them,’ Sirius concluded softly, trying to catch Remus’s gaze, but Remus kept his eyes steadfastly trained on the chewed remains of his left thumbnail. With a sigh, Sirius flourished his arm toward the bookcases that lined the walls of the parlour. ‘Because I never thought you were a monster. I’d read plenty about monsters—my parents made sure of it—, so I knew. I didn’t ever think you were one. Not once.’

Remus continued to stare at his hands, which were clasped in his lap and trembling slightly, as he whispered, ‘I thought you didn’t remember much about our first few years at Hogwarts.’

‘I don’t, not really.’ The feeling of Remus’s frail frame entrapped between him and James prodded sharply at Sirius’s frontal lobe; the very  _ memory _ of the sensation sent pinpricks of phantom shock shooting through his arms. ‘But it’s hard to forget that moment—well, it’s hard to forget anything to do with you.’

‘Ah.’

The air in the room seemed to crackle with electricity as Remus slowly raised his eyes from his hands. They roved over Sirius with great care, and Sirius willed his face to soften as Remus took him in—willed his face to spill out the contents of his chest for Remus to see. They were close enough that, if Sirius dared to, he could close the space between them in mere moments and make up for all the time they had lost—make all those memories corporeal once more.

The thought made him monumentally dizzy.

To fill the space between them instead, Sirius said, ‘So.’

Remus’s expression was inscrutable as he shifted away from Sirius on the sofa, so their knees were no longer touching. Sirius mourned the loss of warmth. ‘So?’

‘Even as a werewolf, you’d still be a better housemate than the sad lot I’ve currently got. And, as we’ve seen, your “furry little problem” wouldn’t be an issue. Clearly.’

‘Mm. “Clearly.”’ Remus raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you mind telling the rest of the Wizarding World that? I think there’s a good number of people who need to hear it. Cornelius Fudge would be an excellent start.’

Sirius scoffed, his voice taking on an edge that he resented. ‘I seem to recall that I’m a wanted man in those circles. In fact, I believe Cornelius Fudge  _ himself  _ called me a deranged mass murderer just last week. My word probably wouldn’t do you any favours—I don't pull like I used to.’

‘You’re probably right,’ Remus said, settling back into the sofa and reaching for his cup of tea. ‘Though mass murderer doesn’t sound too far off the mark. Those poor Doxies in the curtains upstairs didn’t deserve the fate you dealt them.’

‘Remus.’ Sirius recognised that Remus was using humour to deflect from the conversation he clearly did not want to have, and it frustrated him. The tactic had been a source of many of their arguments at school, as Sirius prefered to barrel into a conversation at breakneck speed, while Remus liked to carefully measure everything he said. ‘I know what you’re doing.’

Remus took a sip of his tea and smiled pleasantly. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You’re avoiding the subject. Move into Grimmauld Place? With me?’ The smile slipped from Remus’s face, replaced by a furrowed brow. He slowly returned the teacup to its saucer, and then the saucer to the small table beside the sofa. Worried that he may sound overeager or be moving into a territory that Remus had no interest in, Sirius stumbled to add, ‘You can have your pick of the bedrooms—there are far more than I could ever possibly need anyway, and Merlin knows I haven’t exactly been one for entertaining as of late.’

Sirius tried to keep his voice light, but it was underscored by a deep acerbity. In the before—before the war, before Azkaban, before his innocence and the shreds of his sanity had trickled out of him and taken flight—Sirius had always been the centre of attention and the life of every party. He could feel his insides coil and rear their head as he remembered the smashing success of James’s seventeenth birthday party, during which he had managed to upstage James by getting pissed on too many shots of Beetle Berry Whiskey and snogging not one, not two, but  _ three _ of the sixth-year Gryffindor girls. The exception to this, of course, was Lily—legless as he was, Sirius had been just coherent enough to know that  _ that _ decision would be a death wish. 

Pining for that past made Sirius ache, pangs that echoed deep in his marrow and left a bitter taste coating his tongue.

If Remus noticed Sirius’s brooding thoughts, he didn’t let on. Instead, he scrubbed a hand over his face, seeming to avoid Sirius’s keen eyes. It was clear to Sirius that he was thinking back to when James had offered to put him up after his mum had died—rather ironically, of cancer— just after they had left Hogwarts and the little he’d had saved had dried up. Remus had resisted any help for some time, even refusing Sirius’s insistence that he take some of the money he had inherited from his Uncle Alphard, until he could no longer afford to feed himself.

When this happened, he had given in and accepted James’s offer. And, shortly after, he and Sirius had found a flat together anyway.

The current Remus echoed the Remus of then as he said evenly, ‘I’m not a charity case, Sirius. I don’t need you feeling sorry for me.’

‘I didn’t say that you were.’

Remus smiled ruefully; the look reminded Sirius of seventeen, of cigarette ash mixing with sweat, of a record player just a notch too loud, of slipping away into empty corridors and emerging some minutes later with considerably pinker cheeks. The warmth of it bubbled up in his chest as Remus replied, ‘You heavily implied it, you prick.’

‘Did  _ not _ . If anything, I’m the charity case.  _ You  _ should be feeling sorry for  _ me _ ,’ Sirius baited, nudging his knee toward Remus’s. Remus glanced down at their knees, and then his eyes flicked up to Sirius’s again. They were sparkling mischievously, the trepidation from before seemingly gone.

‘You mean to tell me that you, Scion to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black, are a charity case? Somebody needs to owl the  _ Prophet _ ! I didn’t realise that the Black family had frittered away all of their fortunes and blood money, leaving our poor hero Sirius Black without a Knut to his name.’ Remus nudged Sirius back, grinning.

‘That joke’s about twenty years old, Moony,’ Sirius said, which was close enough to the truth. Remus had said something shockingly similar when Sirius had bemoaned his allowance of only three Galleons a month in their fourth year—though, in Sirius’s defence, Regulus got  _ six _ , which was hardly fair. ‘Find something new.’

In response, Remus slid the sleeve of his cardigan up to reveal a watchless wrist, which he inspected with great care. ‘Oh, dear. Would you look at the  _ time! _ ’ He stood, brushing off his trousers and briskly moving for the door. ‘Thank you for the tea, Sirius. It was surprisingly palatable. I’d love to stay and gamble on a  _ second _ good cuppa, but I really must be off.’

It was then, at the sight of Remus’s retreating back in the doorway, that time slowed down for Sirius. He had run away so many times—from his family, from his friends, from  _ Remus _ —, and he had lost so much because of it. Because, if he was being honest, he had never been allowed to want anything, had never been allowed to feel anything beyond the angst and manic joy that peppered his youth, and it had made him afraid. Sirius had always thought that running away was easier than facing the truth and losing it all. He wasn’t ready to allow Remus to do the same.

Remus deserved better.

Sirius launched himself off the sofa after Remus, catching him by the wrist and whirling him round to look into his eyes. He tried to keep the panic down as he whispered, ‘Remus.  _ Please _ . I don’t want you to move in because I think you need it. I want you to move in because I  _ know  _ I do.’

Sirius watched the colours drain from Remus’s cheeks and felt the pit in his stomach deepen. However, the corners of Remus’s lips quirked upward as he said, ‘My pick of the bedrooms, you said? How about yours?’

________________

Moving in together, as it turned out, was not nearly the radical step that Sirius worried it would be. Remus did not have much, and what he did have fit comfortably into that expanding trunk of his. The trunk was a welcome addition to Sirius’s bedroom on the fourth storey; it filled up the corner that Walburga had once insisted house a collection of Dark artefacts that Sirius swore could curse you if you so much as looked at them the wrong way. 

Though his relationship with Remus seemed to shift and teeter closer to the precipice of a tipping point with every passing moment, every subtle touch, every night in the same bed, Sirius’s life did not change much after Remus joined him in Number 12 Grimmauld Place. He was still miserably bored and lonesome on most days, forced to shut himself in with Buckbeak if he wanted any decent company, as Remus was becoming increasingly busy with what he could only describe as ‘special missions from Dumbledore’—though, this time, Peter was not around to wedge them apart with seeds of suspicion. This time, Sirius didn’t glare sideways at Remus when he slipped through the door and hung his overcoat on the coat stand, his shoulders hunched and his face drawn.

This time, Sirius swallowed away his jealousy at Remus’s usefulness and was ready for him with a cup of tea and a fire in the hearth when he returned.

Sirius had anticipated Kreacher being up in arms about these new living arrangements, especially considering they had decided to magically reinforce the late Walburga and Orion’s  _ bedroom _ to handle Remus’s transformations, but he had not seen Kreacher in weeks. Sirius was glad for it; he did not miss Kreacher’s mutterings one bit, and Remus’s domestic skill set more than made up for Kreacher’s absence. Wherever Kreacher was squirreling himself away, Sirius was pleased that it was not in his sight or range of hearing.

The portrait of Walburga, on the other hand, doubled down on her convictions and became more vocal than ever, hurling every possible insult at Remus whenever he so much as set foot in Grimmauld Place and continuing her wailing until he and Sirius had managed to wrench the curtains that framed her shut with far more force than was usually required. It was exhausting, and Sirius worried that Remus might believe that hate that she spewed, even though Remus insisted that he almost found the portrait amusing.

To keep up appearances as they tested the waters of this new development, Remus would Disapparate with the rest of the Order members, though his destination was typically the bedroom that he and Sirius now shared. The teenage boy in Sirius found this absolutely delightful. He would climb the stairs to the fourth storey of Grimmauld Place with leaden feet, and there Remus would be: in his— _ their _ —bed, in his pyjamas, nose buried in the evening  _ Prophet _ . It reminded Sirius so much of the  _ before _ , when he would come home from a night of mischief with James and Remus would be kipping on the sofa with a cold cup of tea in his hands that was clearly meant to keep him awake.

Sirius hadn’t truly realised how much he had missed it until he had it once more.

One evening, Sirius entered the kitchen to find Remus doing the washing up by hand and humming a soft tune that Sirius didn’t recognise. Elbow-deep in a sinkful of sudsy water and wine glasses from the Order meeting, with his hair curling at the nape of his neck and the collar of his shirt a bit askew, Remus almost looked nineteen again. Without thinking, Sirius pressed his forehead into Remus’s shoulder and wrapped his arms around Remus’s front, where they came to rest near his navel. Remus stopped his scrubbing to tilt his head backward toward Sirius’s.

‘Thank you for cleaning,’ Sirius said, his voice muffled by a mouthful of Remus’s jumper. Remus shifted slightly, so he and Sirius were bumping shoulders.

‘Can’t let it  _ always _ fall to Molly, can I? And Kreacher seems to have flown the coop,’ Remus said good-naturedly. He splashed some of the soapy water from the sink at Sirius, and Sirius scowled at him. ‘Speaking of Molly, I think she knows.’

Sirius, half-listening as he plotted a way to get more suds on Remus, absentmindedly said, ‘Yeah?’

Remus bumped his shoulder again before returning to his task of scrubbing the wine stains from the lip of a glass. ‘Yeah. She thanked me today. Said you’re—how can I put this delicately? A lot less of a depressed sot when she comes to call now. And that the house is a lot cleaner, so you’re either putting in more effort for someone or someone is putting in the effort for you. I think she knew that it was the latter.’

Sirius paused in his scheming long enough to shoot Remus an aggrieved look. ‘I could  _ very well _ be doing the cleaning myself!’

Remus eyed Sirius sideways, his hands still in the sink, and said nothing.

‘I could!’ Sirius protested again, crossing his arms sullenly. More silence followed. Remus maintained eye contact as he rinsed the glass and reached for a ratty tea towel to dry it. Sirius let out a huff of air and glared back, which prompted Remus to smile softly and flick at Sirius with the tea towel.

‘Keep that face much longer, and it’ll get stuck like that, you know.’ Sirius rearranged his face, and Remus beamed. ‘ _ There you go _ , that’s far more pleasant. Anyway, before I moved in, there were entire rooms littered with the remains of your benders. Your bedroom was a bloody wreck. Molly wasn’t exactly wrong, was she?’

Sirius squawked indignantly and whipped out his wand. Before Remus had a chance to properly react, Sirius pointed his wand at the sink and shouted, ‘Aguamenti!’

A jet of water burst from the tip of Sirius’s wand. As it made contact with the water in the sink, the sink erupted like a geyser, spewing water to the ceiling and effectively dousing both of them. The glasses that still rested in the sink clinked together cheerfully, and the glasses that Remus had already dried were covered in a film of soapy water.

Remus reeled around to face Sirius head-on and blinked suds out of his eyes, his mouth slightly agape. His hair was dripping. ‘ _ Sirius _ . Merlin’s beard, aren’t you an  _ adult _ ?’

Sirius just grinned. ‘Time doesn’t count in Azkaban, so I’m 24 in lived years—that’s  _ barely  _ an adult. You deserved it,’ he gestured around the kitchen vaguely as he sauntered out of the room, shouting over his shoulder, ‘ _ and  _ you have more cleaning to do.

________________

As the weeks unraveled into months, Sirius began to wonder if time was as linear as everyone supposed it to be. The longer he and Remus were living together, the more it felt like he was reaching back through time, grabbing hold of something important, and dragging it back into the present. Living with Remus was comfortable in the way that living with Remus had always been comfortable; Sirius was still a slob, was still an impulsive git, was still a heavier drinker than necessary, but he once again had Remus to balance him out and bring some reason into his life.

Just as Sirius had begun to feel as though he was finally picking up the pieces of his life that Azkaban had scattered to the winds and sliding them back into their proper place, Remus found him in the attic—where he had been searching for the still-absent Kreacher—and told him that Harry was in the fireplace in the kitchen. Sirius had nearly fallen down the stairs in his hurry to see his godson, worried about what matter might be urgent enough that Harry was risking contacting them via the Floo Network. Harry’s recount of his stumble through Snape’s memories sent a thrill of nostalgic felicity down Sirius’s spine—a joy that Sirius could tell Remus felt as well—, but this joy was quickly marred by Harry’s doubts of James’s character, and they were ruined altogether by the revelation that Snape would no longer be giving him Occlumency lessons.

Sirius fumed as Remus sternly told Harry that he needed to do whatever it took to continue receiving his lessons from Snape. If it were up to Sirius,  _ he  _ would be the one teaching Harry Occlumency. Sirius was—very grudgingly, of course—willing to admit that Snape was likely a superior Occlumens to him, but that did not mean that Sirius was not skilled in Occlumency himself. It was a very important skill that Pureblood families had been teaching the progeny for generations.

‘Is that Kreacher coming downstairs?’ Sirius heard Harry ask, and it stirred him from his brooding—he wished it was that good-for-nothing house elf coming down the stairs.

‘No,’ Sirius said, glancing behind him to check anyway. ‘It must be somebody on your end.’

Harry’s eyes widened behind his glasses, a look which made Sirius’s stomach plunge. James made the same face when he was in danger, and Sirius felt a gushing worry for Harry as Harry spluttered out, ‘I’d better go!’ and yanked his head from the fireplace. The embers stirred back into place.

Remus glanced at Sirius, his face taut. ‘I hope that Snape is able to put what happened in the past aside for the sake of Harry’s well-being.’

‘I’m going to give Snivellus a piece of my mind,’ Sirius raved as he stood from the floor and stormed out of the kitchen. ‘I told him— _ I told him _ —that if he was using these lessons to bully Harry, he’d have to answer to me. And  _ now _ —’

‘You are going to do no such thing, Sirius,’ Remus followed at his heels, his frown deepening, and he moved between Sirius and the coat rack as Sirius reached for his overcoat. ‘Like I said, I can talk to Snape about this.’

‘You aren’t my mother, Remus. You can’t tell me what to do,’ Sirius said through clenched teeth, trying to extend his arm around Remus to reach the coat stand. ‘Now move. Out. Of. My. Way.’

‘Well, I would certainly hope not! I’m sure your mother would be very pleased that Harry is no longer receiving Occlumency lessons!’ Remus batted Sirius’s arm away, the crease between his eyes growing larger. ‘Sirius, I know that you hate Snape, and I’m sorry that he is hurting the people that you care about, but you have to let me take care of this. He’s just going to goad and provoke you if you go bursting into his office. Besides… What if someone  _ sees  _ you? It isn’t safe, it isn’t practical, and it  _ isn’t  _ what’s best for Harry.’

Sirius let his arm drop to his side. Anger still coursed through him, but it was quieted slightly by Remus’s words. He thought back to Harry’s head in the fireplace moments prior, the look of agony contorting his features as he had asserted, ‘She hated him!’ He looked at Remus with doleful eyes as he retreated back toward the kitchen. ‘You’re right—like always.’

Remus sighed, blowing some hair out of his eyes, and followed him. ‘I know I’m right. You can’t go picking fights with Snape. Like it or not, Sirius, he’s on our side, and we need to treat him that way.’

When Remus re-entered the kitchen, Sirius was already reaching for the brandy on the top shelf of the cabinet—he couldn’t possibly deal with tonight sober. His voice was soft as he said, ‘I hate to think that Harry may have the wrong idea of him.’

Remus caught Sirius’s hand gently and guided it away from the alcohol, intertwining their fingers and placing them on Sirius’s chest instead. Sirius stared at their hands, questions floating to the surface of his brain, but Remus cut his thoughts off by saying, ‘To be fair, that particular memory did not exactly paint James in a positive light. I remember that day, too. I still can’t believe Snape called Lily a you-know-what—I had always thought he fancied her, so it came as a bit of a shock.’

‘Like I said,’ Sirius whispered, a bit breathless. ‘James was everything Snivellus wanted to be. And, like I said—Lily came around in the end.’

Remus gave Sirius’s hand a squeeze. ‘That she did. I must say, I’d like to take at least some responsibility for that. If you recall, it was my plan to push those two together that ended up being the one that worked—far better than  _ your _ daft ideas.’

Sirius ripped his hand out of Remus’s, scowling. ‘Speak for yourself! I thought that sending Lily a Pygmy Puff was a _brilliant_ idea !’

Remus snorted and rolled his eyes. ‘Right. How could we have predicted that Duke Owlington, an _owl_ that dines on cute, small things, would eat a Puffskein, a cute, small thing. No, my idea was best. ’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all! long time no update (oops). i was considering abandoning this because teaching means being tired all. the. time! but writing is one of the few things that currently sparks joy, so i decided against it.
> 
> this is definitely the longest of my "after" chapters, but i had a lot of fun writing it! enjoy!


	16. Before - Part 8 - 7th Year (Summer)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James shook the paper that he was still grasping in his hand. It was flimsy and looked like it had been ripped from a notebook; the neat writing on it seemed to have been done with an ordinary biro, not with a quill. ‘Moony. In my hand, I hold a very important letter. The contents of this letter may shock you. They may absolutely scandalise you. They may leave you wondering: has the whole world gone mad? They certainly had me thinking so. Please, prepare yourself for—’
> 
> ‘Our very own Prongs was chosen for Head Boy,’ Sirius drawled, blowing a gorgeous smoke ring. ‘And, of course, Evans was chosen for Head Girl. She wrote to congratulate him and ask that they put aside their differences to work together this year for the greater good of Hogwarts, or some load of tosh like that.’
> 
> -or-
> 
> In which James Potter enlists the help of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black win over a finally less-than-reluctant Lily Evans.

To Remus, summer holiday always felt a bit like unbuckling one’s belt and exhaling slowly after tucking in to a rather large and filling meal. Each year, the stress of the second term always seemed to compound far worse than the first, leaving Remus absolutely drained by the time May and exams came about. The end of his sixth year had been no exception: between his prefect duties, revising for exams, continuing to maintain his secret, and the bothersome little problem of Sirius’s increasing allure, Remus had desperately needed a break from Hogwarts.

At home, Remus could ignore all those things, some of which were more...  _ serious _ than others.

Summers in Skenfrith meant mornings in his mum’s herb garden, tending to her basil and chervil plants. It meant afternoons in the shade of the towering sycamores that populated the forest behind Remus’s home, lost in a book; Remus’s mum worked at a small bookshop in town, and she always set aside new Muggle books she thought he might enjoy while he was away at school. It meant evenings spent with his father after his return from the Ministry, playing wizard chess and chatting about whatever came to mind—though, this summer, the conversation seemed to turn to politics and that nameless Dark Lord more often than usual, a topic which made a lump grow in Remus’s throat. 

At home, Remus could be himself, without fretting over keeping up the image of the perfect prefect or strange ailments that caused frequent absences or not being desperately in love with one of his best mates. He could sit amongst the trees for hours, read, and pretend that none of those problems would be present once again come September 1st.

‘Remus!’ Hope Lupin’s voice rang out from the fringes of the forest, garbled by distance. Remus stretched out his legs before him, languid from the hot July sun that dappled the ground through the treetops. He lazily turned another page in the book that his mother had most recently deposited in his lap, unwilling to respond until he heard his name a second time. ‘Remus, dear, you have a letter!’

Remus sighed and meticulously creased the corner of his page, marking his place in  _ The Shining _ ; Stephen King would have to wait. He stood and brushed away the dirt and moss that had collected on his trousers, shouting out, ‘Coming, mum!’ in her general direction.

The forest behind the Lupins’ home was, as always, breathtakingly calm. Remus inhaled slowly through his nose, taking in its earthiness and closing his eyes against the cheery sunlight that peeked through the branches as he began to make his way toward his mother’s voice. The soft sounds of the woods—the chittering of critters underfoot, the trickle of a nearby stream, the warbles of a bird above—enveloped him as he climbed over tree roots and ducked under branches. It was ethereal; it was enchanting in ways that even magical forests could not be. Unlike the Forbidden Forest, with its dangers and unpredictability, these woods were a place that Remus loved.

They were a place that he could truly call his own.

Remus smiled as he approached his mother, who had clearly been tending to her garden before she had come looking for him. Her blonde hair was pulled into a disheveled plait that ran down her back; greying wisps and strands were falling out and framing the soft features of her face. She wore scuffed trainers that were caked in grime, and the knees of her dungarees were muddied. One strap was undone to reveal a faded Pink Floyd tee shirt that served as a reminder to Remus that she was of a different class of mother: the cool kind. He sidled over to her, reaching his hand out to take the scrap of parchment that she had clenched in her gloved fist.

‘It’s from James. That bird of his has been at my tomatoes again, looking for mice! He should count himself lucky that I don’t catch it and wring its neck.’ Hope readily relinquished her hold on the letter, trying to maintain a scowl. The expression devolved quickly, which came as no surprise; Remus knew that his parents had not expected him to make friends while he was at Hogwarts, and they reveled in any communication he received from them. 

And, of course, James was by far their favourite.

‘Sorry, mum. I’ll tell him you said so,’ Remus replied, biting back a grin. ‘Maybe, with a bit of practise, he’ll be able to train Duke Owlington to be more polite? Or maybe you just need to have a spare rodent or two on hand.’

‘You should! I swear, Remus John, that bird is going to get it from me if he so much as  _ looks  _ at my coriander again,’ Hope said crossly, though her eyes were twinkling. She continued to mutter to herself about Duke Owlington’s abominable behaviour as she left Remus at the edge of the forest.

Remus shook his head and held the parchment close to his face, his eyes straining to decipher the ungodly scratchings on the page that James tried to pass off as “handwriting.”

_ Moony, _

_ I am writing to cordially invite you to a rekindling of our age-old tradition, the revered ‘Time of Conference,’ as new developments regarding a certain Lily Middle Name Unknown (I think it starts with a J?) Evans have arisen, and I feel that it would be most apropos for us to meet and discuss a strategy which shall propel said Lily Middle Name Unknown (It definitely starts with a J. I’m going to say that it’s short for Jane; it’s close to James, which could be counted as foreshadowing.) Evans straight into my arms by the first Quidditch match of the year. Your romantic counsel is desperately needed, as Lily actually likes you, Sirius’s dating experience seems to be limited to snogging every girl at Hogwarts that he isn’t directly related to, and I doubt that Wormy will be of any true value in this quest. _

_ Please join myself (James Fleamont Potter) and our trusty comrade (Sirius Orion Black) in Wimbourne at Chez (I think I used that right, but Sirius isn’t around to confirm. Damn him, knowing French and making me look like a right muppet in comparison) Potter at your earliest convenience. I suppose that our fourth Marauder and merry mischief-maker (Peter William Pettigrew) will probably also be here. I’m not sure where his family is off to this summer, but it’s no excuse for his sorry arse to be missing from such an important time in a young boy’s—nay, young man’s—life. _

_ Prongs _

_ P.S. If it is inconvenient, Padfoot insists that you come anyway, or you can _ — _ and I’m just quoting here, so don’t shoot the messenger _ — _ ‘sod off, you absolute…’ followed by a truly heinous string of profanities that I do not feel comfortable with Duke Owlington carrying, for fear that he may learn to read them and become a useless, twittering little pottymouth. _

Remus smiled at the letter, turning it over in his hands. As much as he loved being home for the summer, helping his mum tend to her herb garden, slogging through a long list of Muggle novels, and playing wizard chess with his dad, a small part of Remus ached to be separated from his friends so long, an ache that only percolated and bloomed through his nervous system during his lonesome transformations in the cellar. A stay in Wimbourne would be a needed change of pace, though—Remus’s heart rate increased dramatically at this thought—it meant the likelihood of spending time alone with Sirius, something he has been keenly avoiding since last October. If they were alone together, Remus worried that all of his feelings would burst out of his chest, the contents splattering Sirius and scaring him away.

Remus knew that, if this happened, he was fucked.

As he began to pick his way through the meadow back toward his family’s cottage, Remus noticed, in looping cursive that made the hair on the back of his neck tingle and his cheeks warm, a second postscript on the back of the parchment that he had missed before.

_ P.P.S. Remus John Lupin, I swear on the blooming underpants of every wizard you can find on a Chocolate Frog card that I will come to Skenfrith and DRAG you to the Potters’ myself if you have not arrived within a day of receiving this letter. If I am forced to spend one more minute in the presence of this lovesick idiot without your company this summer, I may very well lose it. I dunno how he can possibly care so much. Love is dead, in my opinion. _

_ Also, miss you, Moonshine. I guess. -S _

Remus’s breath caught so forcefully that his upper half stopped moving. Unfortunately, the message to stop did not quite travel from his brain to his legs, and the discrepancy sent him tumbling to the ground amidst the tall grasses. James’s letter—and Sirius’s postscript—slipped from his hand, and the summer breeze sent it fluttering in the direction of the house.

He was  _ undeniably  _ fucked.

________________

‘Moony?’ Through an earful of ash, Remus heard Sirius’s voice; it held a tremor of excitement that Remus was surely imagining. The sound of footsteps thumped away, followed by a shouted, ‘Prongs! Get your tight little arse downstairs this instant. Moony’s here!’

Remus blinked the soot out of his eyes and coughed violently, heaving onto the floor of the Potters’ living room. It had been redecorated since last summer, when Remus had come to comfort Sirius after his harrowing escape from Grimmauld Place. Though still adorned with Gryffindor memorabilia on every surface, the Potters had made some subtle changes. Once a room that could be mistaken as a shrine to the Potters’ darling only child, the living room now hosted a vast collection of framed photographs of James  _ and  _ Sirius.

Still painfully contorted on the hardwood floor, Remus rubbed at his eyes again and reached for the nearest one on the coffee table beside him. It was a picture of Sirius in the Potters’ backyard, head thrown back and shoulders shaking as James scowled at him from the ground, repeatedly running one hand through vividly pink curls and clinging to a pristine white rabbit with the other. It was the happiest Remus had ever seen Sirius.

‘That’s from Easter hols this year.’

Remus flinched, and the frame clattered back to the table. Sirius stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame with an unlit cigarette dangling lazily between his fingers. He wore a fitted black shirt and white shorts that showed far more leg than was strictly necessary, and his sleek hair was gathered into a messy ponytail. Remus couldn’t stop himself from staring at the hard lines of his mouth, at the angle of his jaw, at his long eyelashes, at the crescent moon scar beneath his left eyes, and the quiet reminder that he was  _ so  _ fucked trilled like an alarm somewhere in the recesses of his brain. Sirius moved into the room and held his hand out to help Remus up, prompting Remus to tear his eyes away from his face, scramble to his feet, and choke out, ‘Yeah? I don’t remember hearing that story.’

Sirius bared his teeth, barking out a laugh. ‘Don’t think James would be too chuffed if I shared it with you, to be honest. But I’ll give you a hint: inventing spells is not James’s forte, and the  _ rabbit _ was supposed to be pink.’

‘Sirius! Whatever happened to “to the grave,” you wanker? That was supposed to be private!’ James breezed through the doorway of the living room, clutching a letter and a small object that glinted in the summer sun that streamed through the window. He beamed at Remus. ‘Evening, Moony! I see you spared no time in coming, as you seem to have beaten Duke Owlington back.’

Remus smiled faintly, thankful for the distraction from the curvature of Sirius’s throat. ‘Sirius’s threats got to me.’

James cast his eyes sideways between the two of them, eyebrows raised. Remus refused to consider what the expression might imply. ‘Right. Anyway. We have things to discuss—come along.’ With that, James floated out of the living room as quickly as he had entered.

Sirius caught Remus’s gaze and rolled his eyes emphatically, mouthing what Remus could only decipher as ‘Can you believe this git?’ before jogging after James and giving him a shove as they climbed the staircase toward James’s bedroom. Remus exhaled slowly and counted to ten, begging the colour in his cheeks to fade. He scooped up his bag from the floor, slung it over his shoulder, and followed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

‘So,’ James said, once Remus had settled into the padded seat of the bay window that overlooked the Potters’ expansive estate. James sat on the rumpled sheets of his bed, hugging a pillow to his chest. ‘New development on the Evans front.’

‘Right. Lily.’ Remus nodded along, keeping his eyes trained on James’s face to avoid staring at Sirius, who was lounging on the floor and in the process of lighting his fag with the Muggle lighter that Remus had gifted him in their fifth year. The thought of Sirius continuing to use it, over a year later, made Remus’s stomach wriggle unpleasantly. ‘I haven’t heard from her in ages. I hope she’s doing well.’

James shook the paper that he was still grasping in his hand. It was flimsy and looked like it had been ripped from a notebook; the neat writing on it seemed to have been done with an ordinary biro, not with a quill. ‘Moony. In my hand, I hold a very important letter. The contents of this letter may shock you. They may absolutely scandalise you. They may leave you wondering: has the whole world gone mad? They certainly had me thinking so. Please, prepare yourself for—’

‘Our very own Prongs was chosen for Head Boy,’ Sirius drawled, blowing a gorgeous smoke ring. ‘And, of course, Evans was chosen for Head Girl. She wrote to congratulate him and ask that they put aside their differences to work together this year for the greater good of Hogwarts, or some load of tosh like that.’

Relief coursed through Remus’s bloodstream; he had worried that  _ he _ would be chosen for Head Boy, a responsibility that he was not willing to take on—though he was, admittedly, shocked that it had been James and not Hufflepuff’s seventh-year prefect, Dillard Abbott. Remus looked to James again; his face was scrunched as he chucked the pillow he had been clutching at Sirius and said, ‘ _ Excuse  _ you!  _ Nothing Lily Evans writes is a load of tosh!  _ And I wanted to be the one to say it! It’s  _ my  _ news, you tosspot!’

Sirius batted the pillow away with ease, shrugged, and took another long drag from his cigarette. He tilted his head back against the wall and exhaled slowly. ‘You were taking too long. I expedited the process.’

Remus decided it would be best to interfere before the murderous look on James’s face was actualised. He snapped his fingers in James and Sirius’s direction. ‘All right, all right, you two. Back to the task at hand. You’re Head Boy—congratulations, by the way, that’s brilliant—, and Lily wants to be mates. That’s great news!’

James shot one last look of contempt at Sirius before returning his focus to Remus. ‘Yes, it is great news, though I think Dumbledore has absolutely gone round the twist if he thinks it’s a good idea to make me Head Boy.’

‘That he has,’ Sirius cut in solemnly.

‘Sirius Black, I  _ swear _ ,’ James snatched his wand from his bedside table and raised it threateningly. ‘One more peep out of you, and I will hex you into next year.’

Sirius rolled his eyes, smiling around the cigarette clenched between his teeth and blowing James a kiss. ‘You know you love me, Potter.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ James huffed loudly as he dropped his wand back onto the bed. ‘ANYWAY. I’m the Head Boy to Lily’s Head Girl, so we need to strategise. This is my chance, and I’m not about to muck it up like I always do by being an idiot. Sirius had this idea of sending her a Puffskein because birds always think that sort of rubbish is cute, but it didn’t quite go as planned.’

Sirius made a guttural sound. ‘How was I supposed to know that Duke Owlington would  _ eat _ it?’ he said defensively, waving his cigarette emphatically. The smoke wafted through the bedroom, and Remus wrinkled his nose against its bite. ‘For once, I thought that I had a genuinely good idea that wouldn’t make you look like a prat! You have to at least give me credit for that! It isn’t my fault that your bird is an absolute heathen.’

Remus snorted; this conversation was  _ very _ reminiscent of that which he and his mother had had earlier that day. ‘C’mon, Pads. I could have told you as much. I wouldn’t trust Duke Owlington with anything small and even potentially edible. He has made a mess of my mum’s garden more times than I could count, chasing after field mice. Speaking of my mother,’ he turned his attention to James, who had returned to sending dirty looks in Sirius’s direction, ‘she sends her regards, Prongs. And she said she’ll wring Duke Owlington’s neck if he “so much as  _ looks  _ at her coriander again.”’

James rubbed the back of his neck shamefacedly, the dark skin of his face flushing. ‘Sorry, Mrs Lupin…’

‘She’ll get over it,’ Remus grinned, shifting his focus back to Lily. He thought back to an afternoon that the two of them had shared at the end of the term, whispering to each other in the library and giggling each time Madam Pince raised her eyes from the epic tome on her desk to glare at them. They had been revising for Potions and cracking jokes about Slughorn’s utter obsession with Lily’s natural aptitude for the subject when, without explanation, Lily’s drew her face in and grew very serious.

When Remus asked her what was the matter, she had given a long-winded sigh, pulled at the end of her ponytail, and, very quietly, said, ‘So… what if Potter isn’t so much of an arrogant, bullying toerag after all?,’ a question that all but made Remus fall out of his seat.  _ He  _ knew that James wasn’t any of those things, but he understood why Lily might think otherwise, especially considering James’s behaviour toward Snape.

After waiting a beat, Lily had tentatively continued. ‘It’s just, well. After Sev called me a—after Sev and I stopped talking last year, James really changed. For the better, I think. He seems more mature. D’you think you could, I dunno, talk to him for me?’

With the stress of exams, Remus hadn’t gotten the chance, but now… The memory floated to the forefront of Remus’s mind as he said, ‘So, what to do about Lily, eh? I may have an idea, though I don’t think you’ll be able to do anything until we’re back at school.’

James edged toward the end of his bed, palms planted firmly on the mattress as he leaned in to listen. ‘Yeah? What do you have in mind?’

‘Slug Club.’

James’s face contorted as though he were tasting something sour, but he ran a hand through his hair thoughtfully. ‘As in, go to a meeting? It’s a good idea, I think, but there’s no way. It's invite only, and I’m pants at Potions.  _ And  _ Sluggy hates me.  _ And  _ Snivellus would be there, which will not do me any favours.’

Remus shrugged. ‘Then try to change that. Lily loves Potions. Why do you think she and Snape got on so well before—’

‘You can’t possibly subject yourself to that  _ rubbish _ ,’ Sirius interrupted, scowling up at Remus from the floor and seemingly offended by the very suggestion that James rub elbows with Professor Slughorn. ‘Honestly, Moony, don’t you care about our dear friend James at all? Slug Club is full of jobsworths like Evans, and greasy slime balls like Snivellus, and useless lumps with money like—’ Sirius cut himself off, his face flushing, and he lifted his fag to his lips and inhaled forcefully instead.  _ Like my brother _ . Sirius didn’t say it, but Remus could read it on his face.

Remus and James exchanged a worried look before Remus plowed on. ‘Like it or not, Lily adores Slughorn. Get yourself into his first party of the term somehow, and you’ll be golden. One thing I can say for certain, James: she’s interested. Slug Club may be your way in.’

‘So, she—’ James’s face brightened as he processed the words. ‘Wait, really? That’s brilliant!”

Sirius's expression changed, too; he beamed at Remus, which sent a tingling sensation skittering straight to Remus’s abdomen, before turning to James. ‘See, you git? I told you Moony would pull through. Come September, Bob’s your uncle. You’ll have your leg over Evans, and Moony and I will be forced together by your absence. Look alive, Moonshine—it seems you’ll be seeing a whole lot more of me if this wanker gets his way.’

Remus, who had been distracted by a curl that had escaped Sirius’s ponytail, gave a start and coughed violently to cover it up. James glanced over at him, concerned. ‘All right there?’

‘Yeah,’ Remus wheezed, avoiding Sirius’s furrowed eyebrows, ‘Just remnants of the Floo travel, I think.’

_ Undeniably  _ fucked.

________________

‘I really don’t think we need to be here for this,’ Remus muttered. His thighs burned from squatting to keep the cloak around his ankles; he couldn’t remember when they had grown too tall to wear it properly. ‘James probably wants his privacy. Pete had the right idea, staying behind—I could’ve been working on my Ancient Runes essay right now.’

‘Shut up and shuffle, Moony. If James is  _ finally  _ going to snog Evans tonight, I want to be there to see it. We’ve been waiting for this very moment for years; I ought to get  _ something  _ out of it,’ Sirius bit back, prodding Remus forward with his pointer finger.

‘Your mind never ceases to amaze me. I never fancied you a voyeurist,’ Remus grumbled, but he continued his creep through the sixth floor corridor that housed Slughorn’s office. Though it was late, the corridor faintly pulsed with the music of the party, and soft lights twinkled from beneath the door door.

‘Voyeurist? You must’ve known I haven’t got a clue what that means,’ Sirius purred in his ear. ‘Don’t go using big words on me, Moony. You know it gets me feeling randy, and that hardly seems fair at a time like this.’

Remus’s heart stopped, and his body stopped with it, causing Sirius to plow into his back and nearly knock him to the floor. Sirius grabbed Remus’s waist to steady him. Once Remus had righted himself, however, Sirius fingertips stayed splayed on his sides, and Remus—grasping for  _ something _ to say—stuttered out, ‘I still can’t believe McGonagall let James switch into Potions after the year had already started. And I’m shocked that we were able to get him into the party at all.’

McGonagall had, surprisingly, not required any convincing. She had eyed James evenly when he flew into her office on the first day of the term, begging to be placed in Slughorn’s N.E.W.T.-level Potions class, and said, ‘All right, Potter. I will make the necessary changes to your schedule.’ James, who had been expecting an argument, had launched into a tirade to explain exactly  _ why _ he should be able to add the course until he realised that McGonagall was blinking at him, amused, and he processed her approval of the request. If Remus hadn’t known better, he would have suspected that she and Dumbledore had some sort of wager going to see how long it would take for James and Lily to get together. It would certainly explain James’s appointment of Head Boy.

Judging by Slughorn’s eagerness to allow James a spot at the table for his first Slug Club part of the year, Remus wondered if he might be in on this imagined wager, too—though Slughorn’s enthusiasm could, perhaps, also be attributed to his learning of Mr Potter’s successes as the inventor of Sleakeazy’s Hair Potion. It was just as likely that Slughorn simply saw James as another prize to collect.

Thus, with the beginnings of their plan in motion, the first few weeks of September had passed in a flurry of activity, as James prepared to infiltrate the Slug Club, Sirius grew increasingly more sullen at the prospect of losing his best mate to a bird, Peter rowed with Mary for what felt like the thousandth time, and Remus tried to figure out what the  _ hell  _ was going on. James had also deemed Remus his consultant on All Things Lily Evans, a role which Remus found both hilarious and annoying, depending on where and when James chose to badger him. The Gryffindor Common Room, dormitories, and Great Hall were all deemed safe and acceptable locations for a question about Lily’s interests. After James made the mistake of asking Remus what Lily’s favourite book was while Remus was soaping his nether regions, he realised that the lav or the library while Remus was doing homework were… not so much.

Remus was glad for the distraction, so long as he wasn’t starkers or concentrating on class. Between his responsibilities as a seventh-year prefect, the rigours of his coursework, and incessantly coaching James through their plans to win over Lily, Remus barely had time to even think about Sirius’s increasing impact on his vitals. Somehow, his visit to Wimbourne had ended without incident, as Peter had arrived, flustered and upset at his exclusion from the decision-making process, the morning after Remus, but now—with Sirius’s hands still a steadying presence on his waist, breath hot on the back of his neck, and thicket of curls tickling his cheek—Remus’s stomach felt as though it was perched cliffside, ready to plunge at any moment.

It was not a pleasant feeling.

Sirius seemed to sense the tension in Remus’s voice, and he quickly dropped his hands. Remus could hear him rub his palms violently on his trousers. ‘Erm, right. So, remind me: what’s James’s plan here?’

Remus relaxed his shoulders, which had been creeping closer and closer to his ears. ‘He tells Lily that he’s feeling a bit warm, they leave Slughorn’s office and find a quiet place to talk, and hopefully he plucks up the courage to ask her out. It should be painfully simple, which is why I’m worried James will manage to make a cock-up of it. I don’t want to have to sort all this out for him if he does.’

As if on cue, the door to Slughorn’s office opened. Celestina Warbeck’s soft alto heightened in volume as James and Lily slipped out, hand-in-hand. James had opted for a more “Muggle” look for the party, wearing a handsome cable knit sweater and dark jeans, in the hopes of seeming less ostentatious to Lily. It complimented her plaid skirt and blouse nicely, and Remus couldn’t help but smile at the sight of them together—it was as if his two worlds at Hogwarts were finally converging. Lily seemed to have taken the lead, tugging the two of them toward a nearby stairwell. Remus and Sirius exchanged a look before hurrying after them.

‘Erm, Evans—Lily—I’m not very. Well, I—Listen,’ James was stammering when Remus and Sirius caught up to them, running a hand through his hair carefully-arranged hair and effectively ruining it. Remus winced, and Sirius started to snicker, a sound that was quickly cut off by Remus’s elbow driving into his ribcage. If Lily heard them, she didn’t let on; her eyes were trained on James’s face. ‘You know I’m pants at Potions, but—’

‘Not a very good lead,’ Sirius mused softly into Remus’s ear. Remus shushed him.

Lily raised an eyebrow, the corners of her lips pulling into a smile. ‘Oh, I’m well aware, Potter.’

‘Right,’ James blinked a few times. His eyes kept glancing down at their intertwined fingers, as though he still couldn’t quite believe that he was holding hands with  _ Lily Evans _ , the object of his fantasies for years. ‘Erm, okay. Well. You’re… not. Pants at Potions, I mean.’

‘Also a correct statement.’ Remus could hear the amusement in Lily’s voice.

‘Right. Of course you know. You’re in Sluggy’s—Professor Slughorn’s, sorry—club and all that, and you probably got an O on your O.W.Ls because you’re outstanding at everything, not just at Potions, and—okay. I’m… sorry?’

Lily cocked her head to the side, the smile on her face sliding into a frown. ‘James, are you all right? What are you trying to say?’

James adjusted his glasses and rushed to say, ‘Erm. Okay. D’you—d’you wanna be partners? In Potions? I may need the extra help.’

Remus didn’t need to be a crackshot at Divinations to predict what was going to happen next, but he was too slow to react. Sirius cackled loudly behind him, and Remus whipped around to slap a hand over his mouth. The scramble of movement caused the two of them to lose their footing on the landing of the stairs, and they tumbled down several steps, losing the cloak in the process. Remus let out a groan as his head made contact with the stone, and he winced as he felt his flailing arm make contact with Sirius’s windpipe, causing Sirius to cough and splutter. James’s and Lily’s heads snapped toward where Remus and Sirius now lay splayed on the floor, limbs thrashing and overlapping.

‘What are you two DOING HERE? Well, Sirius, I can’t say that I’m surprised. But... Remus! This was  _ not _ part of the plan!’ James’s voice was thunderous when he recovered from the shock. He turned back to Lily, his eyes panicked. ‘Lily, I’m so sorry, I  _ promise _ I didn’t realise that these two absolute  _ wazzocks  _ were going to—’

Lily surged forward, bouncing on her toes to plant a clumsy kiss right on James’s lips. From beside Remus, Sirius let out a whoop, which coloured Lily’s cheeks, but she wrapped her arms around James’s neck and drew him closer. In response, James apprehensively placed his hands on her hips. Remus watched as Sirius’s jaw dropped, and he felt the embarrassment at witnessing such an intimate moment prickle in his throat.

When Lily finally pulled away, James looked a bit dazed. Lily gestured toward Remus and Sirius, still dumbfounded on the stairs, and laughed. ‘Your friends are idiots. Hi, you two. Did you get the show you wanted, Black?’

For the first time ever, Remus saw Sirius stunned into silence. Lily’s smile widened as she grabbed the still-shocked James’s hand. ‘C’mon, you. We have a party to enjoy. Have a good night, boys.’ James trailed after her as they exited the stairwell, frantically gesticulating to Remus and Sirius with his free hand and mouthing, ‘She  _ kissed  _ me.’

When Sirius finally recovered his voice, he propped himself up on his elbows and smiled brilliantly. ‘Well. Guess love isn’t dead, eh, Moonshine?’

Remus coughed and looked away to hide his burning cheeks. ‘Guess not.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all! i made myself sit down this weekend and finish this chapter (it took like five hours, but it's chill lol) because i've been doodling around with it for weeks but haven't had the chance to really write until now. i had a lot of fun writing this one, because i just adore lily and love any chance i can get to add her in in some capacity. also, remus has such a sweet, nervous innocence to him that i really love, so i really enjoyed playing around with his growing crush on sirius here.
> 
> anywho, hope you enjoy! this is definitely the longest chapter i've written so far (a recurring trend, i suppose), and now i only have a handful of chapters left in my plan, which is just crazy. thanks for joining me on this ride so far! again, this is my first fic--i've always been more of a poetry person than a prose person--so i sometimes struggle with the longevity of it all. i appreciate those of you who have been reading along with me and leaving comments! i write for myself first and foremost, but it's nice to see other people enjoying my silly little stories, too. :)


	17. After - Part 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Reasonable, yeah,’ Remus’s mouth stretched into an “o,” and he made a grab for Sirius’s wrist, clearly trying to get a look at his watch. Sirius glanced at the face as Remus squinted and read it; it was half two. ‘Merlin, Sirius. It’s the middle of the night.’
> 
> Sirius began to justify his reasoning as Remus continued, saying, ‘Remind me why I love you?’
> 
> Sirius’s mind stuttered to a halt. Whatever explanation he had for the question fled his mouth entirely. ‘You—what?’
> 
> -or-
> 
> In which Sirius Black and Remus Lupin make some long-awaited breakthroughs in their relationship .
> 
> tw:  
> panic attacks

‘If it weren’t for me, who knows,’ Remus finished, smiling coyly at Sirius from across the table. In their reminiscing, they had each taken a seat; Sirius watched as Remus drummed his fingers absentmindedly on the table, looking for something to do—something to hold. ‘James was a hopeless case. After all those times he’d made an absolute arse of himself trying to impress her, he had no idea how to properly ask Lily out once she was finally interested. He might not have ever plucked up the nerve if I didn’t nudge him in the right direction.’

Sirius shook his head, examining what remained of the cup of chamomile tea that Remus had brewed and insistently deposited in his hand to replace the liquor that he had originally been pining for. The tea had long since grown cold, and it was a bit weak, but it didn’t send him spiraling into a red haze of anger in the way that the liquor may have. Between the lulling effects of the tea and Remus’s soothing tenor, the boiling anger that Sirius had felt toward Snape for his treatment of Harry had evaporated away; the emotion had simply sunk to the bottom of his stomach like sediment, leaving him feeling unbearably drained. 

As he slowly lifted the cup to his lips and sipped from it thoughtfully, Sirius considered Lily’s position in the whole affair. Sirius hadn’t been mates with Lily the way that Remus was going into their seventh year—until he’d had the chance to get to know her properly, he had always seen her as a bit of an annoying know-it-all or as competition for James’s affection. Despite this, even he had known that, if Lily was at all interested in James, she would pursue that interest. ‘Nah. You’re giving yourself far too much credit. James was a hopeless case, yes, but I think _Lily_ was the true hero of this story.’

Remus’s eyebrows knitted together as he scowled at Sirius and spluttered, _‘Lily_ was the true hero? Are you mental? That isn’t a fair assessment of the situation at all! I like to think that I was instrumental to their getting together.’

‘Moony, c’mon. I mean, really—how _brilliant_ was it that she kissed him like that, right in front of us? James might’ve needed you, but Lily didn’t. Intrepid spirit, and all that. Point is, Harry was wrong. She didn’t hate James, once he was less of a berk.’

Remus dropped the look of consternation and laughed. The sound filled Sirius up, reverberating somewhere behind his breastplate. ‘You’re right. Lily was fearless—if she wanted something she went for it. A Gryffindor through and through, eh?’

‘Obviously. Once he’d grown out of that phase where he couldn’t stop making an absolute idiot of himself, James was all piss and wind when it came down to it. But Lily? Lily went for what she wanted. She was a girl of _action_.’

Without warning, the thought sent Sirius’s mind catapulting violently to Halloween so many years ago, when Lily had to prove herself to be a girl of action one last time, and he coughed and looked down at the grimy fingernails of his left hand. His grip on the cup in his hands grew tighter. He could feel the weight of Remus’s concerned eyes searching for his, and, when he didn’t look up to meet them, Remus reached across the table and gingerly eased the cup from his grasp; he clearly did not want a repeat of the wine glass incident from the end of summer. Then, Remus took up Sirius’s hands with his own, giving them a gentle squeeze.

‘I think about that night a lot, too,’ Remus said softly, as if he could see the film reel that was stuck in a constant loop in the back of Sirius’s mind. When Sirius didn’t respond, Remus rubbed his thumb over a mottled scar on one of Sirius’s knuckles. For the life of him, Sirius couldn’t remember where it came from, but focusing his energies on the feeling of Remus’s hand on his kept him tethered to reality just as he threatened to come unstuck. ‘How brave Lily was—James, too. How afraid they must have been.’

‘I—I went to Godric’s Hollow. I dunno if you knew,’ Sirius said dully. ‘I stopped by Pete’s because I hadn’t heard from him in a while—I was worried about him, you know how he was—, and he had vanished without a trace. No sign of a struggle. Just gone. I knew that something was wrong then, and I got to James and Lily’s as fast as I could, but—’ Sirius’s voice cracked. He didn’t want to relive it, any of it, but the memory came crawling out of the pits of his mind with ease and enveloped him. The pressure of Remus’s hands disappeared.

In the carnage of Voldemort’s massacre, the Potters’s house had been unrecognisable. The plain brown door barely clung to its hinges, and, when Sirius had practically thrown himself from his motorbike and barreled inside, he found that a forceful blast had thrown the ground floor into utter disarray. Lily’s Muggle detective novels had been shaken from the bookcase and now littered the floor in heaps. James’s lucky Snitch had escaped its display case and was anxiously zooming around the living room. Harry’s magical toys had bumbled about on the floor, bumping into each other in distress.

Sirius had been so pained by the wreckage—Lily would _never_ allow her books to be strewn about on the floor like that, with their pages bent and torn—that he didn’t see James at first, but how could he miss him? James looked the way he always did, strung out on the floor of the entrance to the Potters’s home. His tight curls, cut short for the war, matted his head. His hazel eyes, glazed and unblinking, starred at the ceiling through the shattered lenses of his glasses. His arms were contorted strangely, reaching for something, as if he were just centimetres away from clinching a win for Gryffindor during a Quidditch match.

No, Sirius hadn’t seen James at all, distracted as he was by the mess, until he stumbled further into the house and tripped. When he looked to see what had sent him tumbling to the floor, he realised it was a foot that he recognised. There they were: the maroon socks with little golden Snitches on them that Mary had knitted herself and gifted him during the Gryffindor Christmas gift exchange in their sixth year. The big toe of James’s left foot peeked out, tattered as the socks were from the few years of wear that he had managed. Sirius’s eyes traveled up the fraying socks, past the blue and white-striped pyjama pants, over the threadbare jumper, to land on James’s still, still face.

Sirius had wanted to scream then, to release the visceral pain that was ripping open black holes in all the places his organs were meant to be, but a vice-like grip had taken hold of his vocal chords. He felt as if the life was being squeezed right out of him as he slowly rose to his feet and backed away from James’s lifeless body on the carpet. When the backs of his knees made contact with the stairs that led to the first storey, Sirius collapsed onto them as though he were a marionette whose strings had been cut. He climbed the staircase at a crawl, ignoring the splintered shards of glass that pressed into his palms, toward the horrific inevitability that awaited him.

He didn’t know what he was going to do when he reached the top.

It was then that Harry had started to cry. The sound snapped Sirius out of whatever trance he was under, and he scrambled up the rest of the stairs in seconds. He burst into Harry’s bedroom, and there was Lily, spreadeagle like a discarded doll on the floor. Sirius couldn’t bear to look at her, to see if her eyes were open and glassy like James’s had been, and he pushed past her with his eyes screwed shut. Across the room, Harry had hoisted himself up using the bars of his cot. His crimson cheeks were slick with tears, and Sirius could feel that his nappy was soiled as he carefully lifted Harry out of the cot and cradled him in his arms. A cut on Harry’s forehead, flesh-deep, pulsated like an electric current as Sirius pulled him toward his chest.

‘Sirius.’

There was Remus’s voice, but he wasn’t anywhere to be found. Sirius whirled around, clutching the wailing Harry close, sidestepping the bright red halo that Lily’s hair, fanned out, made on the floor. Remus _couldn’t_ be here.

‘Sirius _._ ’

He had left Remus behind.

‘Sirius, I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours right now, but I’m going to need you to snap out of it.’ There was Remus’s voice again, coloured with concern and an undertone of something else—fear? 

Panic.

Sirius wanted to make the panic in Remus’s voice go away, wanted to plug his ears and run where the guilt of what he had allowed could not hurt him, but he still had Harry in his arms, and Harry’s cries were crescendoing, and the buttercup yellow walls of Harry’s room were closing in on him.

‘ _Sirius_ ,' Remus's voice cracked. 'I can’t—I can’t lose you again.’

Sirius came crashing back into the present as quickly as he had fallen out of it. His vision went black, then white, and he gasped for air as if he had been drowning. When the world slid back into focus, Sirius found himself in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, slouched over on the hard oak table. Remus was gaping at him, his mouth ajar, his hands still firmly entangled in Sirius’s.

Sirius rushed to say something that would banish the panic in Remus’s eyes. ‘Remus, I’m so sorry, I—’

‘You don’t have to explain anything,” Remus cut him off, biting his lip. He gave Sirius’s hands another squeeze before releasing them. ‘Your relationship with the past is still delicate. _I know you don’t like being called delicate_ ,’ he countered as Sirius opened his mouth to protest, ‘But you’ve experienced a lot of trauma. That isn’t something to be taken lightly. We don’t have to talk about it if you aren’t ready.’

The memory of Halloween in Godric’s Hollow was crisp and clean as it nudged at Sirius’s periphery once more.

Maybe it was time to let it out.

Sirius frowned and directed his next words to the table. ‘I think I want to. If that’s okay.’

Sirius didn’t have to meet Remus’s gaze to know that he was half-smiling as he murmured back, ‘I think that would be good for you—for both of us.’

________________

It was the moments of domesticity, Sirius decided, that still caught him by surprise the most. He would come downstairs in the morning, and there was Remus, hair sticking in several directions and frying bacon for breakfast. He would end an Order meeting angst-filled and feeling useless, and there was Remus, humming a soft tune that Sirius couldn’t quite place and doing the washing up. He would have a fit of silence that stretched the air taut, and there was Remus, sensing a rough patch on Sirius’s horizon and offering to replace his bouts of alcoholism with chocolate, tea, and a slice of toast with marmite.

In short, things were different—things were _better_ —when Remus was there to fill up all the nooks and crannies of Sirius’s life.

For much of the almost three years since he had escaped Azkaban and tried to slough off the reptilian cold-bloodedness that had rocked his core, Sirius had been forced to reckon with the idea that recovery would be a solitary avocation. Crookshanks and Buckbeak, while wonderful companions to Sirius during his time on the lam, did not come close to filling the voids where the wisps of Sirius’s soul had once resided before they had surrendered to the dementors, one by one. 

The worst part of the lonesomeness of it all was the nightmares. As far as Sirius could remember from the _before_ —which was still painfully little—, he had always been a heavy, dreamless sleeper, with the occasional exception of the dreams of his mother’s bloodied ring or, while he was pining for Remus in their seventh year, rather erotic visions that always seemed to end with Remus ripping his shirt off with his teeth. In the _after_ , nightmares haunted Sirius’s sleep more often than not. He often couldn’t remember them the morning after, could just taste the rot that coated the back of his tongue like tar when he awoke, but he always caught glimpses, just enough to remind him how rotten life was: James’s Snitch socks, or Lily’s books with their bent spines, or Harry’s electrifying scar, still fresh.

It was difficult to pin what, exactly, was the cause for these nightmares. Sirius couldn’t tell if it was the searing guilt or the fragments of his soul that had gone missing or something else entirely. He just knew that, before Remus had moved into Number 12 Grimmauld Place, Sirius had been forced to fend off his demons alone.

Now, whenever he slipped out of himself and could not bear the weight of the world by himself, he had the promise of a cup of tea and chocolate from Remus’s seemingly-bottomless supply.

On one such night, Sirius awoke with a start to Remus’s hand firmly shaking his shoulder. Sirius was drenched in sweat, and—while he couldn’t remember what, exactly, had been haunting his sleep—he was thankful to be awake. As had grown customary, a cup of tea was precariously perched on the nightstand, nestled between Sirius’s various knickknacks and a collection of Remus’s books, and Remus was already unwrapping some chocolate that he had taken from his trunk.

‘Bad dream?’ Remus queried, tipping the chocolate toward him.

‘What would I do without you?’ Sirius asked by way of response, accepting a few of the squares that Remus held out to him and nibbling on them slowly. Already, he could feel the pace of his jackhammer heart slowing; the beads of sweat on the back of his neck were cooling, leaving him clammy and spent but wholly awake.

Remus smiled; it accentuated the dark bags under his eyes. ‘I imagine you’d be just fine.’

‘Would not,’ Sirius said around the mouthful of chocolate. ‘Who else would wake up in the middle of the night to make tea and chocolate for my sorry arse?’

‘I was already awake. I’ve been reading the evening _Prophet_ . It wasn’t any trouble.’ The latest edition of the _Prophet_ lay open in Remus’s lap, and he gave it a little shake, as if to prove his point. Sirius huffed in protest, and, as Remus picked the paper back up and Sirius began to drain his cup of tea, the room devolved into a soft silence that swallowed them up.

Sirius had never liked silence, especially in Grimmauld Place. Walburga Black was a brash, vociferous, and shrill combination of chemical reactions, which inevitably meant that she was the most dangerous when she was quiet. The quiet meant scheming, meant that some terrible maelstrom was brewing on the horizon, and it always led to a load of trouble at Sirius’s expense. This was, perhaps, one of the reasons that Sirius was so resistant to silence—to order—at Hogwarts: he was afraid of it.

This fear buzzed unpleasantly somewhere in the back of Sirius’s skull, and he blurted out, ‘Anything good in there about me?’ to fill the air up with _something_.

Without looking up from the page he was intently reading, Remus almost laughed. ‘I imagine you already know the answer to that question.’

‘That I’m devilishly handsome and wickedly charming?’

Remus hummed absentmindedly as he slowly folded the paper up and let it slip to the floor. He rubbed at his eyes and stifled a yawn as he replied, ‘Yes, that is precisely what the _Daily Prophet_ has been saying about escaped murderer and world-renowned madman Sirius Black. It’s truly a shame they don’t know he sleeps in woollen socks with hippogriffs on them because his feet get too cold at night; that could change anyone’s mind.’

Sirius’s eyes narrowed as finished off his tea and noisily placed the cup back on the nightstand. ‘Are you taking the piss at me right now? In my _fragile mental state_?’ 

Remus snorted, his head already on his pillow and his eyes already closed. ‘Remind me: have you always been this dramatic?’

‘I’m not dramatic,’ Sirius replied, scowling.

Remus cracked an eye open long enough to peg Sirius with a withering glare. ‘Yeah, you are.’

Sirius harrumphed, too tired to argue, and turned off the lights; the bedroom was plunged into shadows. In minutes, Remus’s breathing had slowed and evened out, but Sirius couldn’t sleep. He found himself staring at the ceiling, at Gryffindor paraphernalia that ornamented the walls, at the ornate footboard of his bed. He tried to avoid lingering on Remus’s face, but he eventually gave in to temptation and rolled onto his side.

Sirius studied Remus’s steadily rising and falling chest through the moonlight that coloured the room a vivid heliotrope, toying once more with the idea of closing the space between them and making up for all the time they had lost. It was a thought that now flitted into his mind more times a day than he dared try to count. Sharing a bed like this reminded Sirius of all the times he had climbed into Remus’s cot in the Hospital Wing after Remus’s transformations, aching to stretch out and reach his fingertips past Remus’s flesh to touch his soul. 

The desire was too difficult to resist.

‘Oi, Moony.’ Sirius lifted his hand to trace his pinky along the pale scar that bisected Remus’s face, admiring the asymmetrical fractals it created. Sirius’s finger found the hinge of Remus’s jaw, then the contour of his neck, then the frail lines of his breastbone.

‘Mm?’ Remus grumbled something unintelligible in response, rolling from his back toward the warmth of Sirius’s fingers, which had moved beneath his pyjama shirt to splay across the emaciated planes of his abdomen.

‘Are you awake?’ Sirius slid his hand over the knob of Remus’s hipbone, trailing his thumb around it in small circles. 

Remus’s face was a sleepy blur of soft features, a blur that was marred by the sharpness of his scars, as his eyes slowly blinked open. They were slits, the green barely visible, as they roved over Sirius. ‘I am now, you git. What do you want?’

‘D’you remember the first time we kissed?’

Remus groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face. His voice was heavy with sleep as he slurred, ‘You woke me just to ask if I remember the first time we kissed? I cannot believe you.’ 

Sirius thought this was a perfectly reasonable question to ask at whatever odd hour it was in the morning, and he voiced this opinion with confidence.

‘Reasonable, yeah,’ Remus’s mouth stretched into an “o,” and he made a grab for Sirius’s wrist, clearly trying to get a look at his watch. Sirius glanced at the face as Remus squinted and read it; it was half two. ‘Merlin, Sirius. It’s the middle of the night.’

Sirius began to justify his reasoning as Remus continued, saying, ‘Remind me why I love you?’

Sirius’s mind stuttered to a halt. Whatever explanation he had for the question fled his mouth entirely. ‘You—what?’

If Remus hadn’t been fully awake before, he was now. He shot into a sitting position. ‘Oh, fuck. Sirius, I—Wait. I didn’t mean—’

A goofy grin stretched at Sirius’s face; his heartbeat was spiking. He hadn’t imagined that Remus felt the same way, not after all of the wedges that had driven them apart. ‘You _love_ me?’

Remus’s face turned crimson, bright enough that Sirius could see the colour through the darkness of the room. He flopped onto his stomach, burying his face in the pillow. ‘This is not a conversation I want to be having at two in the morning.’

‘Humour me?’

‘Not a chance,’ Remus replied to the pillow.

‘ _Please_?’

‘I appreciate the gesture, but manners are not going to get you anywhere this time.’ Remus’s voice was muffled; even without the pillow, Sirius knew that he was far away, deflecting and retreating, and Sirius wanted to draw him out.

‘But what if I love you, too?’

The air between them crystalised. Then, very slowly, Remus lifted his head from the pillow. ‘Please tell me you’re being serious right now.’

Before he could stop himself, Sirius responded, ‘I’m always Sirius.’

Remus’s eyes were pained as he whispered, ‘Sirius, please. This isn’t a good ide—’

The agony in Remus’s eyes was enough to push Sirius to do the only thing that had been on his mind for months: he propelled himself forward, taking a shot in the dark. Their lips met clumsily, and then Sirius was drinking Remus in. He was parched from all of the time they had lost—time they should have had together.

Remus stiffened, and then he melted, and _of course_ he still tasted like chocolate.

The kiss lasted one, five, ten minutes, Sirius couldn’t tell. He had lost any ability to properly process time, mesmerised by the firm tendons of Remus’s shoulders, by the influx of his breathing, by way he tangled his hands into Sirius’s long curls and further deepened the kiss. It was synergy realised, the joining of two parts to one whole, and Sirius was relieved to find that their bodies’ reacquaintance was the most natural thing in the world.

‘You didn't answer my question,’ Sirius pressed insistently as soon as they parted.

Remus swatted at his shoulder, trying to pull an angry face, but he was breathing heavily and laughing; he sounded giddy, high even, as he said, ‘You’re an absolute wanker, did you know that? Of course I remember our first kiss.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all!
> 
> i think this may be the longest i've gone without updating, but i've just been so busy with school and life that i've barely had any time to write. such is life. 
> 
> enjoy!


	18. Before - Part 9 - 7th Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘I like the way your nose scrunches up when you’re reading.’ 
> 
> Remus blanched, his next excuse dying on his tongue. ‘You were thinking… I’m sorry, what?’ 
> 
> Sirius’s cheeks darkened further. He looked everywhere but at Remus. ‘When you read. Your nose scrunches up when you don’t understand something, or when you scribble notes in the margins, or when you’re really interested in a part. It’s really…’ Sirius trailed off, roughly shoving a hand into his tangle of hair. His eyes had taken on the wild quality they sometimes got when Gryffindor lost a Quidditch match. ‘What am I even saying? Forget it.’ 
> 
> -or-
> 
> In which Sirius Black pulls a prank, Remus Lupin gets involved, James Potter wins a bet, and Peter Pettigrew hates Valentine’s Day.
> 
> cw:  
> non-explicit sex scene

As a general rule, Remus was ambivalent toward most things. Typically, this philosophy extended toward Valentine’s Day, a holiday which most students at Hogwarts found rather polarising: the _lucky ones_ were consumed by the burning malaise of love; the _unlucky ones_ spent the day avoiding the lucky ones and their dreaded lurgi at all costs. Until his seventh year, Valentine’s Day was simply another day to Remus—perhaps even better than simply another day, as it was one that was, blessedly, filled with chocolate. 

_This_ Valentine’s Day, however, was entirely different—all thanks to a certain disgraced scion of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Remus had hoped that the stress of the school year would quell the fluttering of feelings that had overwhelmed him during the summer, but his stomach and chest stil lurched subversively whenever Sirius was present. The sensation was enough to make his brain go a bit fuzzy, and spending a holiday devoted entirely to hopeless young love and, in most cases, snogging anywhere near Sirius would _not_ bode well for him. 

The Great Hall was already buzzing with far more energy than necessary for a Tuesday morning when Remus slipped in for breakfast. Though classes would be in session as normal, Remus rather correctly assumed that most students—the damn _lucky ones_ —would be skiving off in favour of sneaking out to Madam Puddifoot’s, shagging in abandoned classrooms, gossiping in the corridors, or partaking in some reckless combination of the three. Remus took in the decor of the Great Hall and its corresponding clamour, nose wrinkled. The room was garishly decorated with oversized pink bows and glittering hearts, and rose petals were strewn about the floor. Etta James’s ‘At Last’ was tinkling from a collection of enchanted phonographs that floated above, betwixt the candles; Dumbledore swayed slowly to the music as he tucked in to his breakfast. Even the food was feeling festive; the pumpkin juice was charmed pink for the occasion. 

Remus scanned the Great Hall for the rest of the Marauders, ignoring the Slytherin couple who had decided to forego any attempt at decency to snog without reservation— _horizontally_ —on the bench to his left. His eyes landed on the Gryffindor table, where James, Peter, and Lily were already seated; Lily was laughing and absentmindedly brushing a curl out of James’s eyes as James gesticulated wildly, clearly recounting a story to an equally-enthused Dorcas and enraptured Peter. 

Sirius was, thankfully, nowhere in sight. 

Remus bustled toward his friends, sliding into the open seat beside Lily. He desperately needed to talk to her about the situation on hand. Since December, she and Sirius seemed to have grown much closer; he was always calling her ‘Red’ and barreling into her in the corridors, actions that made her laugh like she was in on an inside joke that nobody else was privy to. Remus chalked this new development in their relationship up to Lily staying in Wimbourne for the winter holiday, and he hoped that she might have some insights on what he could do to continue to push down his painfully-growing feelings for Sirius.

‘Morning, Moony,’ James paused in his rapid-fire talking to nod in Remus’s direction. ‘Dorcas and I were just telling Pete about this absolutely wicked new Quidditch manoeuvre that she and Sirius have been practising for the match against Slytherin next weekend. It’s called the Dopplebeater Defence, and it’s when the two beaters hit the Bludger _together_ for the ultimate p—’

‘That’s great, yeah, I’m sure Dorcas and Sirius will be brilliant as always. Lily, can I borrow you for a moment?’

‘Of course.’ James looked affronted as Lily smiled graciously at Remus. She patted his cheek and gave him a quick kiss. ‘You just keep telling Peter about your Doppelganger whatever.’

‘ _Dopplebeater Defence,_ Lil, I don’t understand how you aren’t at all interested in Quidditch when all Muggles have got is that rubbish football and—’

‘Oh yeah, I just love watching my boyfriend zoom around on a broomstick hundreds of metres in the air,’ Lily said dryly. ‘It really warms me up to know that at any moment he could come hurtling back to Earth and break every bone in his body—so long as the killer balls don’t do it first. No, Quidditch is for bloody psychopaths.’ She turned to Remus and waved James away with a dismissively limp hand.

‘She’s got you there, mate,’ Dorcas said, pulling at one of the curls of her afro with one hand and tapping her temple with the other. ‘But that’s why we play.’ James huffed, a wounded look crossing his face for the briefest moment, before animatedly launching back into his explanation of the move.

‘Erm—D’you think we could go somewhere with a little more privacy?’ Remus whispered, eyes darting between Lily and James.

‘Mm. Snape’s a complete arsehole, but his spells are useful,’ Lily said thoughtfully before twirling her wand around and casting a quick Muffliato Charm. A haze of white noise enveloped them as Lily looked Remus up and down. ‘That’s better. Is everything all right? You’re looking even peakier than usual.’

‘No, I’m all right, it’s just—’

Lily was already checking the date on her watch in thought. ‘Is it really almost the full moon again? I swear, James’s sleep schedule is still off from the last one!’

Remus chewed on his thumbnail, wondering too late if this conversation was the best idea. ‘No, it’s next Wednesday. This is about something else.’

‘Sirius, eh?’ Lily asked sympathetically, placing her hand on Remus’s upper arm. ‘I was wondering when you would finally crack and talk to me about it. I give excellent advice, you know.’

Remus coughed to clear his throat and looked at his hands quickly. The network of scars looked more pronounced than normal, and he wondered for what must have been the millionth time if Sirius would ever be able to love something so damaged. ‘Is it that obvious?’

Lily dug her teeth into her lip, clearly trying to dam the laugh that was threatening to spill. She took a few deep breaths to steady herself before saying, ‘Remus, love. The boys are too dense to notice, but I’m far more observant than that—though, I will say, James seems to be cottoning on. I would still give him another month before he really puts it together. So, tell me: how long?’

Remus sighed and rubbed at his eyes. Lily’s hand was still a comforting presence on his shoulder as he said, ‘I’ve had inklings since Merlin knows when, but I don’t think I entirely realised it until… this time last year, maybe?’

Valentine’s Day the previous year, the Marauders had decided to throw a ‘stag’ party to celebrate their collective singleness. It had been James’s idea, of course; Lily had just started seeing Dirk Cresswell in Ravenclaw, and it was clear to the rest of them that James needed a reason to drown his sorrows in liquor. The night had begun with several exciting games of Exploding Snap, which Sirius had improved upon by suggesting that the player whose card exploded take a shot. Then, there had been racing in Animagus form—Peter, who remained the most sober, won by a longshot, even in rat form—, taste tests with an old box of Bertie Bott’s that Remus found under his bed, and a rousing round of karaoke to Bruce Springsteen’s newest album, blasted at full volume from Sirius’s enchanted record player. The festivities began to die down sometime around three in the morning, when James had drowsily announced to the boys’ dormitory that he would be nicking a snack from the kitchens before bed; a slightly-less drunken Peter volunteered to chaperone him in his endeavours with a hiccough.

Thus, Remus and Sirius had ended up in the dormitory alone, off their trolleys from too much Firewhiskey and tiptoeing around the room like toddlers at their first ballet class. Feeling entirely debauched and mind nebulous from alcohol and lack of sleep, Remus had leaned against his bedpost and begun to ready himself for bed as slowly as he could. Sirius had been smoking a cigarette, his self-proclaimed hangover cure, as he watched Remus shakily attempt to undo the knot of his tie through the shadows of the room. When it became clear that the knot was far too stubborn for Remus’s attempt, Sirius had stuck the fag between his teeth, stumbled over to Remus’s bed, and, with nimble fingers, undid the tie and slowly slid it from Remus’s neck. His hands had lingered over Remus’s chest, face open like a question.

‘Better?’ he had asked, his voice slurring as he worked to make syllables around the cigarette; his intense grey eyes saw Remus in a way that Remus was not accustomed to, and it left Remus with the unshakable urge to grab Sirius by _his_ tie, yank him onto the bed, and kiss him within a centimetre of his life.

Instead, he had breathed out, ‘Yeah. Better. Off to bed, then,’ in a pitch and key that did _not_ belong to him and bolted into bed as quickly as his alcohol-addled body allowed. He drew the hangings violently closed behind him and left Sirius to blink at the space he had occupied moments before.

Remus stuttered through his recount quickly, eyes still on his lap, and Lily nodded along until he finished.

‘I see,’ Lily said, nodding again. ‘So, now you’re worried that these feelings coming to the surface may cause some problems in your friendship? And spending time with Sirius today could cause that, because Valentine’s Day, so you’re just going to let them swallow you up instead of facing them head on?’

Remus tried to swallow around the lump that was growing in his throat. In his mind’s eye, he could see the look of disgust that would distort Sirius’s face if he were to ever find out; in Remus’s imaginary scenario, it was the same face Sirius made when anyone of the Black family was mentioned, or when Gryffindor had double Potions with Slytherin, or when someone beat him in a duel. It was the same face he made after every full moon, when Remus’s bones compounded and broke a million times over and Sirius was forced to stare at his mangled, repulsive body.

Remus didn’t know if he could ever recover from that.

Lily waited for Remus to respond for several beats. When he stayed silent, she sighed. ‘Well, Remus, here’s your unsolicited advice from me for the day: talk to him. It may go better than you expect.’

‘I dunno if I can do that.’ Remus buried his forehead in his palm. ‘I’m a lousy Gryffindor.’

Lily shook her head sharply, laughing again. ‘For someone so smart, Remus, you really are an idiot sometimes.’ With that, she gave Remus’s bicep a squeeze, lifted the charm with another wave of her wand, and rejoined the conversation with James, Peter, and Dorcas; they had moved to talking about the Valentine’s Day party that the Gryffindor seventh-years were throwing for the entire House that night.

Remus ate his breakfast in a blur, lost in thought. When James flung his arms out to punctuate a statement and spilled his entire goblet of pink pumpkin juice on the table, soaking Remus’s bag and dyeing its contents a truly horrid shade of fuschia, Remus didn’t even notice. He was wholly focused on finishing his meal before Sirius showed up. After a plate of eggs and a slice of toast, Remus decided that his luck in avoiding Sirius likely would not last much longer, and he bade his friends adieu. As he hoisted his dripping bag over his shoulder and hurried away from the table, Remus heard James ask Lily, ‘Good Godric, what’s gotten into him?’ 

As Remus began to pick his way through the crowds of snogging students, eager to get to the upcoming period of Double Charms and banish the cursed meaning of the day from his head, a low whistle rang out across the third-floor corridor. Assuming it was an overly-confident lad on the prowl for someone to shag, Remus decidedly ignored it. However, he paused and turned toward the noise when it sounded again. Sirius stood in the alcove beside his favourite portrait—the one with the drunk monks who sometimes went on benders with the Fat Lady—, his face shrouded in shadows; when Remus spotted him, Sirius frantically gestured him forward. Remus glanced both ways, ensuring that Filch wasn’t lurking, before hurrying toward him. 

‘Moony! Why’s your bag wet?’ Sirius asked as Remus approached him.

Remus glanced down at his bag, noticing for the first time that it was soaked through, and frowned. ‘Dunno. Must’ve spilled during breakfast.’ Before he could help himself, Remus’s traitorous eyes scanned Sirius’s wiry frame. Sirius wasn’t even in his robes; it was clear to Remus that he had no plans of attending class today. Instead, he wore—Remus nearly choked on his spit as he spluttered, ‘Are you wearing one of my jumpers?’ 

‘No.’ Sirius tried feign innocence as he folded his arms across his chest, but the extra length of the sleeves confirmed Remus’s accusation.

‘That looks ridiculous on you. It’s far too big.’ Remus could feel his cheeks warming at the thought of his jumper smelling like leather and balsam and broom polish. 

Sirius rolled his eyes emphatically. ‘It isn’t my fault you’re so _tall._ All respectable people are shorter than six feet, you know.’ 

Remus realised that their conversation was moving into a flirtatious territory that he would not be able to resist, so he blurted out, ‘What is this about, Sirius? I’m going to be late for Charms— _you’re_ going to be late for Charms.’ 

‘Bugger Charms! It’s Valentine’s Day, and we’re a couple of young, fit blokes who deserve a day off.’ Sirius paused, peeking around Remus at the droves of students walking past, before adding, ‘D’you trust me?’ The corner of Sirius’s mouth was pulling into a sly smile that sent vibrations whirring down Remus’s spinal cord. 

Remus chose to focus on the suit of armour behind Sirius; someone had replaced its characteristic sword with a bouquet of lilacs for the holiday. ‘When you ask me that? Not in the _slightest_.’ 

Sirius tutted and ran a hand through his hair, mussing the curls. His eyebrows came together. ‘Now, that is the response that I would have expected from world-wearied, self-sacrificing, prefect extraordinaire Remus John Lupin. I was hoping that Marauder and merry mischief-maker Moony may be buzzing around in that thick skull of yours, too,’ he gave Remus’s forehead a sharp rap with his knuckles, ‘and would be willing to make an appearance today.’ 

Remus’s ears pricked at the mention of his status as prefect. Sirius only ever brought it up when he was taking the piss or as preface to his violation of a rule in some monumental way. ‘Merlin, Sirius, what did you _do_?’ 

‘Well, I expect that you won’t find it too agreeable, but—’ 

A loud bang reverberated from the Great Hall, followed by an uproarious chorus of shrieks. Sirius grinned, his eyes flashing. ‘That’ll be the Stink Pellets.’ He paused, checking his Muggle watch for dramatic effect; Remus squirmed at how effortlessly he swept his hair out of his eyes. The distant shrieking in the Great Hall transformed into a full-out wail that crescendoed with every second, and Sirius pointed skyward. ‘And _that_ would be the Caterwauling Charm. Pretty soon the—’ Tendrils of thick smoke the colour of tar began to climb the moving staircase, and Sirius bared his teeth. ‘Oh, _excellent_. This is going even better than I had anticipated. We’re ahead of schedule!’ 

Remus took a breath to steady his racing heart and crowded into the alcove with Sirius. Their bodies were flush together, and Remus had to work to keep his voice even as he hissed, ‘No, Sirius. There is no _we_ in this. _You_ can be ahead of schedule in whatever rubbish you’ve gotten yourself into this time, but _I_ am currently minutes from being late to Charms.’ 

Sirius stuck out his bottom lip. ‘But James has Lily. And Peter’s got that new bird in Hufflepuff, Fenn something-or-other—apparently, he and Mary had another row, and they broke up. It’s us against the world today, Moonshine.’ 

_Fuck._

Remus wanted it to be them against the world every day; the very thought made his vision slide in and out of focus. However, before he was able to excuse himself from the situation and fantasise about what it might mean for it to truly be him and Sirius against the world, Remus found himself in another predicament. Sirius had taken Remus by the arm and began to pull him out of the alcove; Remus’s wrist burned where it was entrapped by Sirius’s thin fingers. 

‘This is the part where we run!’

Before Remus could form a coherent response, Sirius pulled them out of their alcove and dove head-first into the swell of students that now crowded the stairs, screaming and reeking of dragon dung. He yanked Remus along, fingers tight to avoid losing him in the mob. They climbed four flights at breakneck speed, and then Sirius veered left. Though the Marauders knew Hogwarts like no other, Remus’s mind came up blank as he tried to anticipate where Sirius was leading them, overwhelmed as he was by their proximity. They raced up and down the corridor once, twice, three times, before a door was conjured on the wall. Sirius wrenched it open, and the two of them fell into the room.

Remus panted heavily as Sirius bolted the door behind them, and he individually thanked each Founder for their foresight in creating the Come and Go Room. This gratitude, however, was quickly replaced with something much heavier when he turned around to see what, exactly, the Come and Go Room had transformed into to hide them. 

The warm glow of dozens of candles illuminated the space, which was otherwise empty save for a four-poster bed with rumpled sheets like the ones in the dormitories. Hundreds of novels were scattered in stacks across the floor, many of Remus’s favourite titles—Muggle and magical—among them. The scents of chocolate, oolong tea, and pine needles wafted through the air, accompanied by a softened version of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams.’ 

The room was Remus reified, manifested even, and Remus panicked.

‘What is this.’ Remus’s voice came out with more acid than he had intended. He couldn’t tell if his pining had somehow conjured this perfect room or if Sirius was taking the piss, and he realised with a rapidly-increasing dread in his chest that he wasn’t sure which option he preferred.

‘Haven’t the foggiest.’ Sirius sounded as though he was trying to play it cool, but something caught in his voice. He surveyed the room, hands shoved roughly into his pockets, and wrinkled his brow.

Remus scrambled to say something, _anything_ , to wash himself of guilt, though he knew his prospects of success were low. He could already see the cogs whirring in Sirius’s brain, and he wanted to divert any conclusion that ended with his embarrassment. ‘I don’t know what you think this might mean, but I _promise_ it wasn’t me.’

‘No, it was... Well, I was just thinking about… I was distracted, y’know, I’m always distracted when I… I should have been trying to find a hiding place, but... When we passed the room, I was thinking about… I just…’ Sirius rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks turning a vivid shade of scarlet. ‘I like the way your nose scrunches up when you’re reading.’ 

Remus blanched, his next excuse dying on his tongue. ‘You were thinking… I’m sorry, what?’ 

Sirius’s cheeks darkened further. He looked everywhere but at Remus. ‘When you read. Your nose scrunches up when you don’t understand something, or when you scribble notes in the margins, or when you’re really interested in a part. It’s really…’ Sirius trailed off, roughly shoving a hand into his tangle of hair. His eyes had taken on the wild quality they sometimes got when Gryffindor lost a Quidditch match. ‘What am I even saying? Forget it.’ 

Remus couldn’t quite understand the vastness of the statement; it felt as though he was underwater, and everything Sirius was saying was garbled and murky and ensnared by seagrass. He needed to remove himself from the situation as soon as possible, before he did something he regretted. ‘I think I need to go. Charms, and everything.’

‘Moony, wait—’

‘I’ll see you later, Sirius. Enjoy… whatever this room is.’

Remus turned away from Sirius, every atom within him screaming to turn around, to just _kiss him,_ to be brave for once in his goddamn life, because when would he ever have an opportunity like this again? 

He didn’t turn around.

He lifted the latch on the door and began to turn the handle instead, thoughts so trained on escape with the singular discipline of a boy who had done nothing but yearning all his life without result—yearning to be different, yearning to be normal, yearning to be _whole_ —that he didn’t hear Sirius launch himself after him.

But then Sirius’s hand was gripping his arm like a lifeline, and he was being spun around and pinned to the wall, and Sirius was crowding into his space and _kissing him_ , kissing him with the desperation of a boy who had wanted nothing more than to feel loved and accepted, and Remus was _kissing him back_ , stooped over to make up for the height difference, hands brushing the sides of Sirius’s face, overcome by this tidal wave that was Sirius. A million thoughts raced through Remus’s mind at once, though only one was clear, and Remus clung to it: _this is real_.

The world was cracking open, and light was spilling out.

When Sirius pulled away, he eyed Remus tentatively. Like a tether, his hand didn’t leave Remus’s arm, which was lucky; Remus wasn’t sure he would trust that this was reality otherwise. At first, Remus could do nothing but gape at him in response, but he composed himself just long enough to splutter, ‘So, you…?’

Sirius nodded furiously. His eyes stayed on Remus’s face. ‘For as long as I can remember.’

‘Oh.’

‘Oh? What do you mean, oh? Too good for the former heir to the Black family fortune, eh?’ Sirius pulled an offended face, though his eyes were bright. Then, his face fell as though he finally processed what had just happened, and he dropped his hand from Remus’s arm and began to pace. ‘You feel the same way, right? Oh, Merlin, _did I muck everything up again_?’

‘I—yes! I mean, _no_ , you didn’t muck everything up. Of course I feel the same way. How could I not?’ Remus let out a shaky laugh, tilting his head back against the wall. His mind was a vivid kaleidoscope of dancing colours and shapes, but that ugly, green feeling that reared its head every time Remus saw Sirius with someone else was the one that prodded him forward. ‘It’s just… All those other girls. I never expected—’

Sirius’s voice was a bit manic as he cut Remus off. ‘ _No_. They were just distractions. It’s always been you, Remus.’

‘But I’m just—’

Sirius slapped a hand over Remus’s mouth, eyes taking on a flinty expression that surprised him. ‘Whatever it is you’re about to say, I _don’t want to hear it_. You are more than enough and more than I could ever possibly deserve.’

Remus wanted to retort, to bring up that—between his lycanthropy, his plainness, his proclivity for rule-following—he had a very healthy track record that could prove the opposite, but Sirius seemed to sense this desire. He replaced his hand with his lips once more, and a soft sound vibrated in the back of Remus’s throat in place of whatever he had wanted to say. He shyly wove his hands into Sirius’s hair. Sirius made a pleased noise before carefully planting his hands on Remus’s hips and beginning to steer him in the direction of the bed at the centre of the room.

‘Sirius,’ Remus gasped out against Sirius’s mouth as Sirius grappled with his tie with one hand and pushed his robes off his shoulders with the other. The robes drifted to the floor with ease. In his haste to lay down, Remus nearly tripped on one of the many piles of books that littered the floor as Sirius backed him closer to the bed. ‘I don’t…’

‘Do you want to stop? Is this not okay?’ In an instant, Sirius’s hands stopped in their tracks and started to retreat from Remus’s body. 

‘ _No._ ’

Remus grabbed Sirius’s hands and guided them back to his chest, where Sirius immediately began scrabbling with the buttons of his shirt, propelling him forward. His knees backed into the foot of the bed, and he collapsed into it, scrabbling backwards to make room. In one swift motion, Sirius mounted the bed and straddled Remus’s thighs. Every part of Remus was pulsating with energy, threatening to burst at any moment, and Remus basked in the sensations of Sirius’s weight on his legs, of Sirius’s nails scratching against his chest, of Sirius’s tongue licking into his mouth. Remus pulled at the hem of the jumper Sirius was wearing— _his_ jumper—, and Sirius broke their kiss just long enough to sit back on his haunches, pull it over his head, and discard it on the floor. When Sirius lowered himself and returned to the task of unbuttoning Remus’s shirt, Remus took the opportunity to run his knuckles over the hard planes of Sirius’s stomach and up his sides. Sirius shuddered against him.

‘Sirius—I—this is more than all right, but—wait.’ The last few wisps of Remus’s self-preservation were skittering about frantically in the back of his mind. He could feel the colour flooding his cheeks, and he stopped Sirius’s hands with his own,right at the waistband of his trousers. ‘I—my scar.’

Sirius paused and moved into an upright position, still perched atop Remus’s legs. His face was flushed; the yellow candlelight glinted in his steely eyes. ‘I’ve seen you without a shirt plenty of times, Remus. Don’t be an idiot.’

‘But this is different.’

Though he had been young when Fenrir Greyback marked him, Remus could vividly remember the first time he saw the bite, after all the salves and ditannies had run their course and he was finally free to return home from St Mungo’s. His stay at the hospital had not been pleasant; his body vibrated with the tremours of lycanthropy that now throbbed in his veins, and he had been forced to drink potion after disgusting potion by a Healer who looked at him as though he had personally brought about the apocalypse. Lyall and Hope Lupin refused to leave his bedside during the day, but he spent the nights alone; the Dai Llewellyn Ward did not allow overnight visitors. His parents, worried that magical transportation may reopen the gashes that Greyback had carved into him, had opted to take him back to Skenfrith in Hope’s trusty Austin A60, and Remus spent the drive with his chin resting on his forearms, staring out the window as the metropolis of London transformed into vast seas of green and listening to his father sniffle into a kerchief.

When the Lupin family finally arrived at their cottage and Lyall had carefully carried Remus inside, depositing him on the sofa, Hope had suggested in a soft voice that they change the dressings on Remus’s shoulder. The bandages were stiff and itchy, and Remus was ecstatic to have a moment to let his wounds breathe. As Lyall dug in Hope’s purse for the phial of Essence of Dittany that the Healers had given him, Hope had slowly unravelled the tightly-wound cloth that suffocated Remus’s shoulder. Remus had waited patiently, excited to see his skin smoothed over and pure as it had been before.

That, he had quickly realised, would not be the case.

When Hope finished unwrapping the bandages and crumpled them into a tight ball, seeing the bite for the first made bile, thick and sour, rise in Remus’s throat. The puncture marks were a ring of intense red, surrounded by spiderwebs of crusted, blotchy skin. Remus remembered rubbing at his eyes, lips trembling; though he wasn’t sure when the tears started flowing, it was that moment that he fully grasped that he would never be ‘whole’ again. Quite simply put, he had lost a part of himself the night of the attack; it had spilled out of him and jumped out the window with Greyback’s retreat.

Remus felt the roiling nausea that had swept through him then catch in his throat once more as he whispered, ‘It isn’t exactly pretty.’

Sirius leaned forward to stroke Remus’s cheek with his thumb. The urgency from moments before was lost, replaced by something softer and more intimate. ‘Well. Scars aren’t meant to be pretty.’

‘I s’pose not,’ Remus murmured as he propped himself up on his elbows, burying his face in Sirius’s chest. In response, Sirius threaded his fingers into Remus’s hair. ‘Though this one’s a bit uglier than the rest.’

‘Nah. Besides, our scars are an important part of who we are.’ Sirius tapped the crescent moon scar beneath his left eye, the one that Remus knew his mother had given him the night he ran away from home. ‘They’re there to remind us that we’re fighters, yeah?’

 _You aren’t a monster_. The words that Sirius had repeated to him over and over in his bed in the Hospital Wing echoed loudly. Remus choked back a cry, and he managed to say, around the threat of tears, ‘Words of wisdom from Sirius Black? I never thought I’d see the day.’

Sirius grinned softly, the kind of smile that Remus had imagined so many times but never seen, and Remus promised himself in that moment that he would do everything in his power to make Sirius smile like that again and again. ‘I surprise even myself sometimes.’

His fingers found the hem of Remus’s shirt again gingerly, and he bit his lip, searching Remus’s eyes for permission. Remus nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and Sirius slowly untucked the shirt and slid it off of his shoulders, revealing the scar.

Sirius’s voice was reverent as he mumbled, ‘You’re beautiful. _Look at you_.’ His fingers found the long scar that began at Remus’s collarbone and tapered off at his ribcage. Remus closed his eyes, leaning into the touch. ‘‘They’re like… like the night sky. Like constellations.’ He pressed his lips against the mottled skin of Remus’s shoulder, craterous and alive, and something carnal, almost feral, came alive in Remus.

He shifted his weight and flipped the two of them. Sirius gasped as his body forcefully hit the mattress, and Remus found himself taking what he wanted, being _brave,_ for what had to be the first time in his life. Remus felt lightheaded, and he couldn’t tell if he was severely lacking oxygen or if it was the overwhelming presence of Sirius pressing at his lungs, but he didn’t care. Remus ground into Sirius’s hips again and again, between where his legs had fallen open, and before long Sirius’s breath began to stutter.

‘Bloody hell,’ Sirius managed to choke out. Every part of him seemed to be straining against Remus. ‘Should we—do you want to—’

Remus froze, breathing hard, and pulled back to gawk at Sirius. ‘I haven’t—have you—’ Remus trailed off, biting his lip. ‘Are you sure?’

A blush was creeping onto Sirius’s face, but he nodded, his eyes wide with certainty. ‘I—Yeah. More sure than I’ve ever been in my life, actually.’

There was fumbling with buttons and zippers, and the soft whisper of clothing falling away, and the endearing clumsiness of fleeting teenage innocence, and then Sirius was tilting his head back, his inky curls sprawled across the pillow and eyes rolling slightly in his head, and Remus was sighing into the heat of Sirius’s skin, and, for those few moments, synchronicity was actualised.

________________ 

Remus wasn’t sure how long they laid together afterward, naked, tangled up in each other, and completely spent. He was sticky and slick with sweat, but Sirius didn’t seem to care as he languidly traced his fingers along the patchwork of scars that decorated Remus’s abdomen. Every so often, he would roll over to sprawl on top of Remus, arms splayed dramatically, and plant feathery kisses on every available surface of Remus’s body. This couldn’t last, though; eventually, Sirius yawned and checked his watch. His face transformed into a pout.

‘Oh, bugger. We should probably get moving; it’s already noon. I think we’ve passed enough time, yeah?’ He scratched at his head in thought. ‘Hopefully, Filch’s no longer on the prowl, and we can make it back to the Common Room without any trouble. We’ve got each other, too, so that’s some plausible deniability.’

Remus rubbed the vestiges of his drowsiness from his eyes and sat up. ‘I think we could still make it to the back end of Charms, actually, because it’s a double lesson today.’

‘Must I say it again, Moony? _Bugger Charms_. It’s Valentine’s Day.’ Sirius’s voice was playful as he threw his arm over his face in disgust, moaned, and continued, ‘How did I _ever_ fall for a swot like you?’

‘Ooh, low blow, Black.’ Deciding that it was, indeed, time to get moving, Remus detangled himself from the silken sheets and rolled out of the bed. He shimmied into his pants and retrieved the rest of his uniform. Examining his robes, he determined with a bit of relief that, while crumpled, they were still salvageable. He smiled at Sirius as he buttoned his trousers. ‘You really ought to be careful; I won’t hesitate to take points just because we’re together. Don’t want to show favourites, you know.’

Sirius grunted and flipped over, burying his face in the pillows. Remus laughed to himself and scooped up his discarded jumper, a forest green drop amidst the sea of the chestnut-coloured books that still covered the floor. He balled the jumper up and threw it at Sirius; it hit him square in the back. Sirius raised himself from the pillows slowly, his face pinched, and made a rude hand gesture in Remus’s direction. ‘I stand by what I said, and then some. Congratulations; you’re a swot _and_ a prat.’

‘Well, that isn’t a very kind thing to say, is it?’ Remus knotted his tie with far less precision than usual. It was a bit eskew, but he was too drunk on this moment to care.

‘Excuse you. I’ve been told I’m a fucking delight.’ Sirius sighed and trundled out of bed. Remus drank him in, all soft curves and sharp angles, as he stooped over to recover his pants. ‘I believe it was said entirely in jest, but the thought still counts.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Remus chewed on his thumbnail as he watched Sirius continue to dress himself, a nagging thought begging to come out. ‘Sirius?’

Sirius pulled his head through the hole of Remus’s jumper and peered at him. ‘Hm?’

‘Did you plan this? Was this supposed to happen?’

Sirius slid his arms into the jumper, his face scrunched in thought. ‘Yeah, I _absolutely_ planned on shagging one of my best mates today. I wrote it in my calendar, actually, so I didn’t forget. Would you like to see?’

Remus pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled very slowly. ‘Can you be serious for one moment in your life?’

Sirius paused as he pulled up his trousers to waggle his eyebrows at Remus. ‘I’m always Sirius. Having some regrets about this already, are we?’

Remus crossed his arms and attempted a world-wearied expression that he told himself was very convincing. ‘God, I hate you.’

Sirius just grinned and slipped on his trainers. ‘Nah, you don’t.’

As they moved toward the door of the Come and Go Room together, fingers interlaced, Remus nudged Sirius with his shoulder. ‘But really, Sirius—you didn’t plan this, did you?’

Sirius looked shiftily to the side, turning pink. ‘Not… exactly? The prank really was just because I thought it would be a laugh, and I wanted to mess with James for his first Valentine’s Day with Lily and all. I didn’t mean to make the room turn into what it did, but once I saw it, well. I had hoped for an outcome like this.’

‘I figured as much.’ Remus unlatched the door, struck by the realisation that things were going to be _different_ when he pushed it open. He tried to visualise James’s and Peter’s faces if he and Sirius strolled into the dormitory together, like this, and he quickly dropped Sirius’s hand and added, ‘We should keep this a secret for now, right? To—I dunno—figure things out?’

Sirius’s face fell; Remus could have sworn he looked disappointed, but he nodded his assent. ‘Right. That’s… brilliant, yeah. Good thinking.’

They exited the Come and Go Room stealthily, scanning the corridor for signs of life. Remus wished they had the map on hand, but it thankfully didn’t matter. The corridor was completely clear, save for a tabby cat with square spectacle markings around its eyes, and Remus breathed a sigh of relief.

He realised too late what the cat signaled, and by the time his mind made the connection and he turned to warn Sirius, Professor McGonagall was standing in front of them, arms folded over her tartan robes.

‘Ah. Good afternoon, Mr Black; Mr Lupin.’ McGonagall took in their disheveled appearances without expression, shaking her head. ‘I had assumed as much. Though, I must say, I expected Mr Potter and Mr Pettigrew to be involved in some way as well.’

‘James and Peter were busy. It’s Valentine’s Day, y’know,’ Sirius muttered darkly, though an undercurrent of euphoria threatened to drown the corners of his voice. ‘I had to make twice as much of a ruckus to account for their absence, especially after our utterly abysmal attempts at mischief-making on Halloween. Lily’s fault, of course, she’s such a spoilsport, I had to up my game to save my reputation. You understand, I’m sure.’

McGonagall's face communicated no understanding. ‘My office, both of you. We will decide on a proper punishment there.’

Remus’s heart, so full moments before, sank into his stomach. Though at this point very resigned to the fact that he would always be getting into some kind of trouble because of his mates, Remus still felt that phantom anxiety of being expelled from Hogwarts pull at him, especially this close to graduation. His father seemed worried about his job prospects, about the Werewolf Registry, about the rising anti-Dark creature sentiment, which—given his position of esteem in the Ministry—was not very reassuring. Sirius glanced at him, worry on his brow.

‘Wait, Minnie—Professor,’ Sirius quickly corrected when he saw McGonagall’s thin nostrils flare. ‘Remus didn’t do anything. It was just me.’

McGonagall looked Remus up and down, eyebrows raised. Remus squirmed under her sharp gaze, painfully aware of his bedraggled hair, rumpled clothes, and raw lips. ‘His appearance certainly speaks to the contrary.’

‘Professor, I can assure you that the current condition of Remus’s attire is entirely unrelated. I can show you in a Pensieve if you’d like to see for yourself the cause of _that_ —but let me warn you, I doubt you would deem it appropriate for school.’

‘Oh Merlin, Sirius _, no_ ,’ Remus’s face was burning, and he covered his face with his hands to hide it. He was less-than-pleased by the idea of McGonagall bearing witness to _any_ of the things that had transpired in the Come and Go Room; he figured he would die of embarrassment if she did.

McGonagall blinked a few times, betraying some small glimmer of surprise, before looking between the two of them once more. She heaved a sigh and slowly said, ‘I do not think that will be necessary, Mr Black. On to my office with you, then. Mr Lupin, I believe you should be in Charms with Professor Flitwick.’

Sirius followed McGonagall like a hanged man en route to the gallows, face completely stoic as he passed Remus, but he shot Remus wink and blew him a kiss over his shoulder as McGonagall rounded the corner ahead of him. Remus stared after him, a lopsided grin overtaking his face. 

Bugger Charms. It was Valentine’s Day, after all, and he was finally one of the _lucky ones_.

________________ 

‘Oi! Sirius! Where were you during Charms today, mate?’ Peter descended upon Sirius in the Gryffindor Common Room, deepening his foul mood. Sirius stormed toward the stairs to the boys' dormitories and ignored Peter in his fury. He dodged a fifth-year couple that was far too handsy for his liking, more than half-tempted to hex them, and glared so hard at a meek little first year studying by the windows that she gathered up her books with a squeal and raced out of the Common Room.

Peter continued on conversationally when he seemed to realise that Sirius was not in the mood to talk. ‘James and I noticed that both you _and_ Moony were missing from class. I will say, this is behaviour that I think we _all_ expect from you, but not at all from everyone’s favourite prefect, Remus Lupin. Care to comment?’

Sirius did not want to talk about Remus, especially not with Peter. _Something_ from the day needed to remain sacred, and talking to Peter about it would decidedly deplete what little joy remained. Sirius climbed the stairs two at a time, leaving Peter to hurry after him, breathing laboriously. ‘I dunno where Moony was. I was busy getting my leg over Jaqueline Brown in Ravenclaw—not that it’s any of your business, you nebby twat.’ 

Peter’s voice was petulant as he whined, ‘Merlin’s left tit, Sirius, what’s got your knickers in a twist?’

Sirius whirled around on the landing of the stairs to glare Peter down, snatching his wand from the pocket of his trousers as he did so. ‘McGonagall’s completely mental, that’s what. Are you going to sod off now, Pete, or do I have to make you?’ Peter gave a whimper, and an uncannily Remus-sounding voice in the back of Sirius’s brain chastised him for snapping. However, the thought of his meeting with McGonagall sent another redhot flash of anger through Sirius’s bloodstream and effectively drowned that voice out, and he just gritted his teeth as he yanked open the door to the seventh-year boys’ dormitory.

The room was in utter disarray; it looked as though James’s trunk had exploded, its contents scattered to the winds at an impossibly wide radius from the blast zone. An assortment of tee shirts and waistcoats covered James’s bed, and pair after pair of trousers lay puddled on the floor. James stood in the midst of it all, wearing a polo neck that was likely covering a vast collection of Valentine's Day love bites and a pair of briefs that had little mooncalves with heart eyes printed on them. He was going into battle against his unruly hair with a tube of Sleekeazy’s in one hand and a wide tooth comb in the other. His wand was clenched between his teeth, and a mirror levitated at eye-level before him.

‘Padfoot!’ James bellowed as Sirius burst through the door. James’s wand fell from his mouth and clattered to the floor, which broke whatever spell he had cast on the mirror and sent that plummeting as well. It shattered with a loud crash, and James swore and snatched up his wand to Vanish the remains. ‘You’re lucky I’m a bit preoccupied at the moment, or I would be hexing you into Christmas right now. You and Remus pulled a Valentine’s Day prank _without me_? Moony, no wonder you looked so gutted during breakfast—you, at least, felt bad about keeping it a secret!’

‘James, for the fifth time, _I_ did no such thing,’ Remus said from where he sat, cross-legged and wrapped in a blanket, on Sirius’s bed. He had changed out of his wrinkled robes; instead, he wore a taupe cardigan and dark jeans. _Charms of Defence and Deterrence_ was open in his lap, and he was scratching away at a page with his quill. The entire sight sent a flurry of warmth buzzing through Sirius’s synapses, but it wasn’t quite enough to make him entirely lose his anger. Remus looked up from his book briefly to smile at Sirius before turning his attention back to James. ‘Sirius was the mastermind. This time, I happened to be an unsuspecting victim caught in the crosshairs, just like you.’

‘All right then, Sirius. A solo prank. I want to be angry, but it was bloody brilliant,’ James grinned widely at the memory of it. ‘Blimey, what a scene you caused! Even Lil had to give you credit, though she was absolutely furious, mate. And the _professors_! How did Minnie take it? I thought she was going to have a conniption!’

Sirius flopped onto his bed, face-down. His head grazed Remus’s knee, and the proximity sent another shiver through him as he grumbled, ‘Not well. She gave me Saturday detentions for a month, took fifty points, _and_ suspended me from the team for our match against Slytherin for “disrupting the peace,” whatever that means. Bloody hag _knows_ how much I want to clobber Regulus’s stupid, Death-Eater face, and she’s denying me even that pleasure.’ He rolled onto his back and shot up, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes.

Even though Sirius knew that Regulus was fargone—had seen his Dark Mark himself one afternoon in the library, with ink the colour of onyx against Reg’s pale skin—, he wanted nothing more than to protect him from harm, just as he had when they were children. He gritted his teeth. ‘I was hoping a Bludger to that dense head of his might knock some sense into him, and now we won’t even know.’ 

James shook his head, clearly outraged at McGonagall’s gall, and crossed his arms as he leaned against his four-poster. The task of fixing his hair lay clearly forgotten, and the curls sprung up in messy clumps, claiming their victory. ‘Down a Beater for our biggest match of the year? When you and Dorcas have been practising the Dopplebeater Defence to perfection? Is she fucking serious, mate?’ 

‘Actually,’ Remus put in mildly, as though he were commenting on the weather and without looking up from his book, ‘I was under the impression that I was “fucking Sirius.”’ He paused to wrinkle his nose. ‘Though I resent how _American_ that sounds.’ 

The air in the room went entirely still as all eyes swiveled to Remus. Peter squeaked ‘ _What?!_ ’ as Sirius—completely forgetting his anger at McGonagall—bellowed, ‘ _Moony!_ What happened to _not_ kissing and telling? You said!’ 

Remus shrugged, casually dog-earring the page he was on as if his declaration had been the most natural in the world, though his cheeks were glowing a bright red. He closed the book with finality and set it on Sirius’s bedside table. ‘The opportunity presented itself. And I knew you would tell James soon enough anyway. Now neither of us can bottle out and pretend that nothing happened.’ 

Sirius gaped over his shoulder at Remus, too shocked to manage his signature two-finger salute. Remus was right, of course: there was no way he could have gone more than a week without telling James. He hadn’t even wanted to keep the whole affair secret to begin with, only agreeing for Remus’s benefit. But Sirius felt that he deserved at least _some_ credit. 

James, having overcome his astonishment first, pumped his fist into the air. ‘ _Yes!_ I _knew_ it! Y’know, Lily wouldn’t tell me if I was right even though I asked her again and again for _months_ , just told me it wasn’t my business and to bugger off.’ He turned to Peter and crowed, ‘Take _that_ , Pete! You owe me ten Sickles!’ 

Peter, seeming to have recovered from the shock himself, scowled. ‘That isn’t fair! You said before Valentine’s Day; I said after! We didn’t have an agreement for what happened the day of!’ He stuck his arm roughly into his trunk and rustled around, flinging the Sickles at James, before griping, ‘I feel like today counts as _after_ because Valentine’s Day is almost over.’

‘You _bet_ on us getting together?’ Sirius buried his face in Remus’s lap. He couldn’t tell if he was more angry or impressed.

‘‘Course we did. It wasn’t really a matter of if, so much as _when_. Hate to break it to you, mate, but _you_ were obvious—’

‘ _Obvious_?’ Sirius broke in, huffing. He had imagined himself quite slick and inconspicuous, a covert spy after Remus’s heart.

James rolled his eyes and prattled on as if Sirius hadn’t interrupted him. ‘Staying with Remus after every full moon in the Hospital Wing, fretting over him, always asking if he was all right, hexing anyone who even looked at him sideways. _Reading that bloody awful book for pleasure_ —that’s what really gave it away.’ James shrugged, then jerked his head in Remus’s direction. Remus, Sirius noted with displeasure, looked vaguely amused. ‘Moony was a bit harder. As we all know, he is an excellent secret-keeper. I assumed he had told Lily _something_ —there _has_ to be a reason she prefers doing rounds with you over me, no offence—but she would just get all quiet and mysterious every time I brought it up.’

‘I imagine she enjoys doing rounds with me over you because I, unlike you, am not an unbearable git.’ Remus tangled the fingers of his left hand into Sirius’s hair and gave his head a scratch. Sirius, still stewing, had to fight his newly innate instinct to stick out his tongue and begin panting. ‘Sorry, Pads. If it makes you feel any better, it wasn’t obvious to me—’

‘It doesn’t,’ Sirius grumbled into Remus’s thigh.

Remus continued as if he didn’t hear him, though Sirius could have sworn he heard him snicker. ‘But I’ve been told I’m about as oblivious as they come.’

Sirius muttered, ‘You’re all a bunch of wankers,’ under his breath before lifting his head from Remus’s lap and kissing the hinge of Remus’s jaw. The weight of doing so, after months of wondering at how it might feel, settled in Sirius’s stomach and filled him up. Peter made another squeaking sound, and James pretended to retch. Sirius glared at him across the room. ‘Oh, shut it, you. I’ve seen you do far worse with Lily.’ 

James opened his mouth to retort, but, as if saying her name one too many times had conjured her, Lily exploded into the dormitory and cut him off, eyes flashing brightly. ‘Afternoon, boys! I come bearing exciting Valentine’s Day ne—Oh, for Chrissakes, James, _put some trousers on._ Those are horrid.’

James pouted. ‘Well, hello to you too, _dear._ ’ He wriggled his butt in Lily’s direction. ‘I happen to like my lucky mooncalf underpants.’

Lily leaned against the doorframe, smirking. ‘Keep those on, Potter, and there will be no “lucky” in your vocabulary tonight, I can _guarantee_ you.’

Clutching at his chest, James gasped in fake horror. ‘You can’t possibly mean that.’

Lily raised one pale eyebrow; the rest of her face remained unchanged. ‘Try me.’ James seemed to recognise this as a viable threat, and, accepting defeat, he pointed his wand at a pair of jeans on the floor, summoned them nonverbally, and yanked them up his legs.

For the hundredth time, Sirius wondered how he had ever pegged Lily as a boring prig. He tipped an imaginary cap at her. ‘Cheers, Red. I dunno what we’d do to keep this idiot in line without you.’

Lily turned to Sirius’s bed and, upon seeing Sirius lounging in Remus’s lap, broke into a wide grin. ‘Oh, _finally_. I was getting rather impatient, you know. I thought I was going to have to sit you two down and make you talk to each other.’

‘Did you know?’ Remus asked. He was frowning slightly at Lily. ‘When I talked to you this morning?’

Sirius wasn’t sure what Remus was referring to, but Lily’s face brightened further. She flounced over to James’s bed and dropped herself onto it. ‘‘Course I did. Sirius told me _ages_ ago—well, that’s not entirely true. I worked it out on my own, just like I worked you out on my own. I just had to wait for you both to get yourselves sorted, too.’

‘Lil, I won the bet!’ James, now in his trousers, rattled the Sickles that Peter had thrown at him before dropping beside Lily on the bed and giving her shoulder a playful shove.

‘I think I deserve that money, as it was made on my behalf and I am _poor_ and _without loving parents_.’ Sirius called over to James from his station in Remus’s lap. 

Remus swatted at his head. ‘I think I deserve the money. It was a gamble because of me, after all. You were _obvious_ , remember?’

Sirius did not like this reminder, and he made his displeasure known by transforming into Padfoot and knocking Remus over. He pinned Remus down and licked at his face until Remus was laughing frantically and gasping for air.

‘As I was saying before I was _so rudely interrupted_ ,’ James said, waggling his fingers at the two of them as Sirius transformed again and curled into Remus’s chest. ‘I _could have_ won sooner if you had just told me that Moony was as lovestruck as Padfoot—I would’ve just locked them in a broom closet and hoped for the best—, but I forgive you.’

‘Thank goodness,’ Lily deadpanned, laying down. She raised a hand to her forehead, looking faint. ‘Whatever would I do without your _forgiveness_?’

James glowered at her indignantly. ‘As I am now ten Sickles richer, I am going to pretend that you aren’t being rude to me. Now we’re just waiting on Dorcas and Marlene. I bet before Easter on that one, so I've got some time.’

Lily’s shot into a sitting position, slapping her hand over her mouth. ‘That’s _right_! My news! I was so distracted by your absolutely dreadful underpants that I almost forgot. Marlene asked Dorcas to the Valentine’s Day party tonight!’

‘Oh, dear.’ James said frankly, adjusting his glasses. Lily shot him a questioning look, and he responded with, ‘The gays have taken over Gryffindor. We heterosexuals better band together.’

His straight face cracked as he turned to Peter and boasted, ‘That’s ten more Sickles, Pete. Cough up.’

‘This is rubbish. I hate Valentine’s Day,’ Peter griped, but he begrudgingly began to dig around in his trunk.

Sirius shook his head and kissed Remus again, smiling against his lips. He couldn’t remember a time that he had felt happy, truly happy, like he did now. His past was certainly blackened by his family, but sitting on his bed with a boy who he may be able to love forever, with a second family who he knew would never hurt him, served as a reminder that everything could turn out in the end—even for someone as damaged as he was. The realisation was worth a thousand detentions with McGonagall.

As long as he kept capturing moments like this and saving them in his back pocket, he figured he’d be all right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all! i had the chance to write a lot of this over winter break; thank goodness for time off!
> 
> enjoy!


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